Thoreau and the Cellar

                Cellars are important in Thoreau’s Walden. He describes his own, six feet square by seven deep, dug in sandy soil one afternoon, in the first chapter, thus creating a direct contrast to the pit he encountered in the Irishman’s shanty, which was covered, not by a hutch, but by the bed.  This is where he will store his potatoes and beans for the winter, so he was careful to dig below the frost line. In the same paragraph, he observes that the cellar is the most important part of a house, no matter how fancy, and the only thing that will be left when the house falls down.

                The last observation is true. In New England, when I was growing up, stone walls wended their way through miles of second growth, indicating old fields. And, in the corners, near the old roads, were cellar holes, lined with granite, sometimes filled with rusting trash. We climbed around in them; my parents used the one on our property as the shooting range for the BB gun. (My mother was a crack shot; she practiced on rats at the dump when young.)  

                Cellars still perform important functions. I am always aware of ours in November, because I spend so much time settling it in for the winter. We store all of our firewood in the cellar, sorted for fireplace and stove. The potatoes are in bins under the stairs. All of the canned goods line another wall, along with the rice, beans, grains, and teas that we buy in bulk.  The packing boxes for sending holiday presents sit on the desk counter. All of my pots for canning are stored down there, as well as the empty bee hive boxes and the extra apples and tomatoes. We have a box of Christmas wrapping paper and a box for birthdays. We bring the benches and chairs inside and downstairs. The furnace, water heater, and washing machine are in the cellar—it is the mechanical heart of the house. We also keep all of the stuff we are almost ready to clear out down there. I kept my old bike for a year or two, until I found a new home for it. There is still a bag of faux Tupperware and lids on the shelf. Mark holds onto old medicine bottles in a bag. Every four or five years, I do a cellar purge and clear out the excess junk, mostly by putting it out to the curb.

 I am not sure that Thoreau would approve of all of the stuff in our basement—it indicates that my affairs cannot be counted on my two hands, or even with my ten toes, and suggests that I should do some work to simplify my life. I think he would seriously object to Mark’s collection of vintage crockpots, burnt orange and avocado, waiting for harvest gold, on one shelf. However, the self-sufficiency of the winter stores and tools would please him, as it does me. It is the essence of New England, tucked away into the cellar.