Yes, she said.<\/p>\n
My teenage sister had lobbied for that basement veneer.\u00a0 It made for better make-out parties. Basements were where the action was.\u00a0 It was where you got all kinds of work done.<\/p>\n
How do people in sunny climates get any work done?<\/p>\n
My friend and neighbor<\/strong><\/span> John Cermak lived in his basement his entire adult life.\u00a0 He installed a pool table, gun rack and shower.<\/p>\n John died at<\/strong><\/span> 41 from complications of mental illness and alcoholism. He could put away a case of Wiedemann’s in a single weekend.\u00a0 Or was it in a single day?<\/p>\n I still often think of calling John.\u00a0 For instance, the electric company called and said, “The voltage at the cap is good.”\u00a0 It was?\u00a0 If the voltage was good, why didn’t we have any power in four suites?\u00a0 The electric guy said, “The inside line, outside, is yours.”<\/p>\n John, you there?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Yiddishe Cup fan said she lived in the house I had grown up in. \u00a0I asked her if the basement was still wood veneer paneling. Yes, she said. My teenage sister had lobbied for that basement veneer.\u00a0 It made for better make-out parties. Basements were where the action was.\u00a0 It was where you got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coming-of-age"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3225"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8593,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3225\/revisions\/8593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"tricicle\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/tricicle-241x300.jpg\" "\\"tricicle\\"")
When I became a landlord, I often called John for advice on boilers, blown fuses and backhoes. \u00a0 When he was about 8 years old, he mounted a lawnmower engine on a tricycle.\u00a0 He was my guru of the physical world. \u00a0John was also good at academics; he was interested in everything from English literature to Saab car engines.\u00a0 He graduated St. Ignatius High and John Carroll University.<\/p>\n