Is Your Basement Upstairs?

By Christine Merrick

So what is this book and why would you want to read it? Darned if I know. But here's the basic premise: A mother of 9 children is a compulsive journal keeper (6,000 plus pages spanning nearly 50 years) which gives her a lot of material to work with. And she has some unusually funny and outrageous kids who sometimes are good and other times are a magnet for trouble. Every page is full of random journal entries. They might be funny, unbelievable, heartrending, or thought provoking. ...You just might want to come along for the ride.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781644689110

Book preview

9781644689110_cover.jpg

Is Your Basement Upstairs?

Christine Merrick

ISBN 978-1-64468-910-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64468-911-0 (Digital)

Copyright © 2020 Christine Merrick

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

I Hurt My Five! I Hurt My Five!

Building Our House According to Murphy’s Law

Your Arm Better Be Broken or You’re in For It!

This Is My Daddy He’s in a Bird Costume!

Lindsay’s Unbirthday Party

Jesus Said, Love Another One

Is Your Basement Upstairs?

It’s Not My Fault, Mom!

Hope He Doesn’t Break a Leg Someday

Cool Car! Hey, I’m Sorry I Smashed It Up!

I Was Just Trying to Ride the Dog

The Merrick Halfway House for Troubled Teens

Mrs. Merrick, This Is Officer Adams

The Bug Collection That Wouldn’t Die

Do You Have Any Guns in the Car?

Look, Clint, No Hands!

So Audrey, Eat Some Butter

But I’m Not the Real Superman

I Need a Tow Truck For My Boa Constrictor!

No, Landon, Kick the Ball to the Other Side!

Gotcha

Mommy, Is It Okay If I Cry Now?

Mom Has a Warrant Out for Her Arrest!

Bwangon is Nog Ogay!

What Can I Kill Then?

Why Did Grandma Plant the Weeds Anyway?

Shooting Rhinos

Chapter 1

I Hurt My Five! I Hurt My Five!

Fall of 1967

I was an eighteen-year-old college student living at home, dating a fair amount, but no one seriously. From the time I was a little girl, I wanted to have eight children. Don’t ask me where that number came from. When I would share my aspirations with grown-ups, they would give me a knowing smile and say something like, Well, after you’ve had one or two, you’ll change your mind. Aunt Margaret was sure I’d never be able to have any children since I was such a skinny child.

Tonight as I knelt beside my bed, I reminded Heavenly Father about the eight children that I wanted to have. No sooner had I gotten those words out when these exact words came rushing into my heart, It isn’t eight, Chris, it’s nine! I was so dumbfounded that I stopped praying right then and there and just sat on the floor with my mind reeling.

In the Lord’s tender mercy, I forgot about that impression until many years later. Can you imagine being overwhelmed with four sick little kids and a husband routinely out of town on business and thinking, And I have to have five more? After having seven children and wondering why I didn’t feel like our family was complete, that experience came back to me.

February 6, 1970

I was talked into going to a dance on the University of Utah campus tonight by my friend, Laura. She is twenty-six and in hot pursuit of a marriage partner, so I was willing to endure another stag dance in hopes she might meet someone. I danced all night with this really cute guy named Randy, but I have a blind date next week, and with all the buildup about this guy, I’m sure he’s the one.

February 13, 1970

The blind date was a bomb! He was cute and a really nice guy, but there was just no attraction on either side.

February 14, 1970

I had my first date tonight with Randy, the guy I met at last week’s dance. We went to a Valentine’s party at his church, and by the end of the evening, I knew I’d found the guy I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

February 21, 1970

Tonight was our second date. At the end of the date, just to be silly, Randy gave me an engagement ring from a gumball machine.

March 15, 1970

I worked in a dental office as a dental assistant, and on Thursdays, I was alone in the office, doing billing and other secretarial work.

Randy surprised me at work today and came up behind me before I had a chance to hide what I was working on. In front of me was a wedding guest list! This was a little awkward since we haven’t yet talked about marriage.

March 23, 1970

I made up a large Easter basket for Randy and drove it down to his house. Do you think the bride and groom chickadees sitting on top were too big of a hint?

August 14, 1970

We were married today, exactly six months from our first date, in a wedding ceremony in the Salt Lake Temple. Later this evening, we had a beautiful garden reception at our church.

Our wedding and reception were everything I’d hoped them to be, and just for fun, I wanted to include a breakdown of the costs.

We kept things pretty simple since Randy and I were paying for everything. But keep in mind that this was 1970. My mom and aunt made all the dresses.

Having married off our nine children and also a niece over the ensuing years, all we could do was give a wistful sigh at the cost of that first wedding.

June 8, 1971

Randy surprised me with a German shepherd puppy today. Never mind that we live in an apartment above an ice cream store and have no yard. He figured we had the perfect dog run since our backdoor opens onto the adjoining roof of the Italian restaurant next door.

The dog used to hang over the retaining wall on the roof and bark at the customers! He only lasted a few months before the landlord ordered him to go.

June 29, 1971

I’ve just about had it with Randy’s surprises. Today it was a six-foot blow snake. It’s in a cage which is where it will stay.

Wrong! It got loose more than once. One time, I opened the bathroom door to find it coiled up and hissing at me, ready to strike. It finally disappeared for good, which was a little disconcerting with the culinary establishments below us.

December 15, 1971

Angie, all six pounds, twelve ounces, and twenty inches of her came nine days early. She has beautiful olive skin, quite a lot of dark-brown hair, and is the prettiest baby I’ve ever seen!

The doctor told me that the harder I pushed, the faster she would come. Well, I was all for that. On the first push, she came out like a football, and the doctor literally caught her. After such an easy pregnancy, labor, and delivery, I think I’m made for having babies! So there, Aunt Margaret!

December 17, 1971

Today, Angie and I were released from the hospital. I thought I would be nice and let Randy go skiing with his buddies, but when my mother picked me up from the hospital, I felt like an unwed mother. (Remember, this was 1971, and times were different.)

The three of us moved to California in April of the following year with our first real job after college. We had only been there for four months—barely enough time to see the sights of San Francisco, the Hearst Castle, and the ocean—when we received greetings from Uncle Sam. Randy had been drafted into the Vietnam war. He was able to get into an Air National Guard unit in Utah. In September, we moved back to Utah and in with my parents and two sisters. After completing his six weeks of basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, the three of us continued to live with my parents until Randy completed the six months of his initial training with the guard.

December 11, 1972

Today’s Sunday dinner started out fairly typical, meaning Dad and Mom were arguing. When everyone finally sat down to eat, the tension was really unbearable. Then Dad found a new topic to harp on Mom about. Suddenly, without saying one word, Randy picked up one-year-old Angie from her highchair, walked out the door, and drove off in the car! It was snowing outside, and he didn’t even grab Angie’s coat. But the worst part was that he left me sitting there to take the brunt of my dad’s wrath! Randy and Angie returned later that evening after visiting with his mom. (Yes, we stayed married.)

February 27, 1973

Today, Randy and I went to a furniture store and bought a couch and a loveseat. We stored the furniture in my parents’ garage, still in their packing crates.

This was certainly a logical purchase to make, considering that we didn’t yet have a place of our own or even know for sure which state that home would be in!

With his military obligations behind him (except for the monthly weekend warrior gig) and finding no job openings with his former company, Randy found a position with a company in Denver, Colorado. Off we went again.

April 18, 1973

After living in a motel for a week, we found a duplex to rent in the city of Westminster and were excited at finally being in a home. It was an interesting experience moving in. As Randy and I struggled to carry in the washer, dryer, couch, loveseat, and bedroom furniture from our U-Haul truck by ourselves, there sat the 40-something-year-old neighbor in the adjoining duplex drinking a can of beer on his front porch.

October 10, 1973

I have been teaching Angie, who is now almost twenty-two months old, to count to ten on her fingers. Today she came running to me, crying, I hurt my five! I hurt my five!

January 27, 1974

Today a little brother arrived for Angie. Rusty weighed seven pounds, fifteen and a half ounces, and was twenty and a half inches long. (Those halves are important details to a mother!) He has just a trace of brown hair and is so cute. To be able to cradle him in my arms on the delivery table after waiting nine long months to meet him is indescribable.

Just to confuse everyone, we called him Rusty as a little boy, Russ through his teens, then he switched to Taylor as an adult.

November 1, 1975

I was driving back from the store this afternoon when I saw a man trying to push his car out of the road. Hey, I’d pushed cars before, so I pulled over and jumped out of my car. I got to within thirty feet of the guy when this sudden realization hit me, and I wished at that moment that the road would just open up and swallow me! Somehow in my enthusiasm to help, I’d forgotten that I was eight months pregnant and big as a house! I just gave the guy a weak smile and turned around and slinked back to my car. I don’t even want to know what he must have been thinking.

December 6, 1975

Little Jeffrey was born today. He weighs seven pounds, two and a half ounces, is twenty-one inches long, and has snowy white hair. He never cried at his birth, just looked around with eyes wide open. He’s adorable and seems quite enamored with this new world he plopped into.

December 10, 1976

I took Jeff, who just turned a year old a few days ago, for his first haircut today. To my surprise, he sat like a statue in the barber chair the entire time—even his facial expression was frozen. The buzz of the clippers didn’t even cause him to flinch.

Chapter 2

Building Our House

According to Murphy’s Law

July 14, 1977

The construction of our new home has officially begun. They started digging the foundation today.

We bought five acres of land in a rural subdivision north of Denver called Wadley Farms. Randy decided to be the general contractor to save money. Bad idea. We built our house according to Murphy’s Law, which states if something can go wrong, it will go wrong!

August 21, 1977

Today, seventeen-year-old Sven came to live with us. He’s an exchange student from Germany and speaks pretty good English. Honestly, we hadn’t been thinking of hosting an exchange student at this stage in our young family’s life, but a good friend was in charge of placing these students in our city, and by July, he still hadn’t found enough host families.

We were a little crowded until we moved the following April to our new home, but Sven did have his own bedroom. This was his senior year of high school. Sven turned out to be an exceptionally nice young man, very polite and helpful around the house. He earned extra money helping Randy with odd jobs with the construction of our new home. Sharing those eleven months with Sven turned out to be a wonderful experience for all of us.

November 3, 1977

The framing of the house is now complete, and today we had our first inspection. The basement walls were found to be too short and didn’t meet the minimum height requirement. The inspector told us that as it was, the basement could only be used as a 1,500 square foot crawl space!

Randy ended up digging a depth of six inches out of the entire basement and hauling the dirt out the basement windows in buckets! The ground was frozen because of the subzero temperatures, and he had to use a pickax to loosen the dirt. Then the walls were lengthened with hand-mixed cement. It was a cold miserable job.

January 9, 1978

It has been fun to watch Sven experience things for the first time. He had never tasted peanut butter before he came to America, and he loves it! He puts it on everything.

March 17, 1978

We are just days away from moving into our new home, and today for the first time, the water was run through the pipes. This sounds crazy, but our water comes from a well, and because of problems with the construction of the well, it wasn’t hooked up to our house until today. Our plumber lives in Kansas, and when his work was completed a month ago, he headed home. (This probably saved his life!) Without water, he never sufficiently tested the pipes. After turning the water on, Randy discovered to his horror that there were only three joints in the entire house that didn’t leak! Water was leaking down through the ceilings and light fixtures, ruining our newly painted walls and ceilings.

Holes had to be cut in the walls, floors, and ceilings of almost every room, including through the tile work in the bathrooms. Our plumber had used a new liquid solder that didn’t require heat. Something had obviously gone wrong.

March 31, 1978

Today is my birthday, and I got the most wonderful present—a beautiful baby girl with auburn hair (which turned to light blond in a month or so). Lindsay, who has sucked her thumb from the minute she was born, is six pounds, eleven ounces, and eighteen and a half inches long. Unfortunately, Randy was in Chicago on business and couldn’t be located in time and arrived twenty minutes after her birth! This was the first (and only) time that I had two friends in the delivery room as my coaches instead of my husband.

April 8, 1978

Today we moved into our not-quite-finished new house. We are excited to be here, but the timing is a little rough, considering that Lindsay is just eight days old. We can’t use the water yet, but I’m sure it just needs to run through the pipes another day.

Wrong! The water was unusable for three months because of the high iron count. We quickly burned out the water heater. We invested several hundred dollars into a water softener and an iron filter. This made the water useable but not drinkable. During this time, we were hauling in water in plastic milk jugs from the neighbors. After several months, we discovered the real source of the problem—the well itself. Groundwater was seeping into the well. After the well company fixed the problem, our water was naturally soft and delicious. We unhooked our expensive equipment, and it sat forlornly in the basement.

April 21, 1978

It rained today. To be more exact, a solid sheet of water poured down half the day. This was a serious problem, but let me back up. We hired a man to grade our five acres some weeks ago, and he took a temporary leave of absence in the middle of the job, leaving his grader abandoned in the field and our house essentially in the bottom of a bowl. After the rain started, the house became the perfect drain for all the water in the surrounding fields. It wasn’t long before several basement window wells filled up, causing the window panes to break, letting the water gush in. Within minutes, the water was eight inches deep, soaking boxes that hadn’t been unpacked yet, including all our books. Randy was out of town on business (it figures), so I immediately called members of our church for help. Within minutes, a dozen men were at the house. Some were outside trying to divert the water by making dams, and others were carrying up soggy boxes from the basement. They ended up renting a gas-powered pump.

Randy called in the middle of the chaos, and I yelled a message to the person who answered the phone, Tell him I can’t talk right now. The house is full of gasoline fumes, and the kids and I are being evacuated to the Dillons!

Keep in mind that Lindsay was just a few weeks old, Jeff was two, Rusty was four, Angie was six, and Sven, our German son, was seventeen.

April 22, 1978

The kids and I came home today, and I attempted to put my house back together. There was mud and glass all over the basement floor. The contents of the basement had been carried to the main floor and had to be sorted through. There were boxes full of wet books to try and salvage and a thick layer of mud that had been tracked all over the new carpeting to clean off. I was pretty disheartened.

May 18, 1978

This morning, I donned Randy’s hip wader fishing boots to carry Angie down our one hundred-foot-long driveway to the road to catch the school bus. This is no easy task because it takes a great deal of strength to pull each boot out of the ankle-deep mud after each step! We’ve had a very wet spring, which has turned our property into five acres of mud. As of yet, we have no cement on the garage floor, no front steps or sidewalk, and the road base on our long driveway keeps sinking. For weeks now, we’ve had to park our cars on the road. Once we had both cars stuck in the driveway up to their axles and not even our neighbor’s tractor could make it up our long driveway to pull them out! Let me describe what life is like these days. It’s a long walk in fishing boots to carry kids, groceries, laundry, or the dozens of gallon milk jugs of water needed each day to and from our car, which is parked on the