A few days ago I started talking about my parents’ basement and how much I covet it. Then I went off in a direction I hadn’t originally intended and never made it back.

There are a number of things that makes their basement ideal. It’s mostly underground and dark, but not damp. There is a lot of shelf space and floor space. It’s wired for electricity, so a chest-type freezer is in its ideal element down there. And though not entirely convenient, it’s accessible from inside the house.

Every year Mom would supervise the bottling of beans, applesauce, tomatoes, and any other excess produce from our garden. If any of the local stores held case-lot sales she’d stock up. If we could get a good deal on local fruit she’d buy several bushel and we’d put them up. We’d freeze corn, carrots, peas, and anything else we could get. Every year our food supply downstairs grew by just a little more than what we used until it became pretty much full.

Now and then after we children have moved out with families of our own we would go through some hard times. Mom and Dad’s basement was always open. We could come help ourselves–Mom would insist on it, really. It was always a blessing to have it available.

My parents were both raised on farms. Though they moved to the city not long after they married, they never forgot their country self-reliance. Mom’s grandpa was the “town doctor,” though he had no more than common sense and experience to go on when stitching up people and animals, setting bones, or whatever else needed doing. He once built a set of toy furniture for my mother from an old packing crate. If Mom didn’t remember its origins I’d never have guessed. His carpentry with leftover, low-quality wood is better than mine when I set out with fancier tools and better grade wood.

Now that I’m older I’m beginning to appreciate just how much my parents learned from their parents. I appreciate even more all the things my parents passed on to me. I’m sure there are many skills they took for granted that the forgot to teach me, but what they have taught me is considerable. That wealth of knowledge is irreplaceable, and I have to make sure I pass it along to my children.

Someday my Mom will join Dad on the other side, and chances are the family food storage basement will go away. It will certainly be missed. But the lessons that came from filling that basement will last forever. I’ll be forever grateful for the foundation of self-reliance they built for me.