Staircases adventures

Here's this week's Don't make me turn this car around! column appearing in newspapers...

Staircases adventures can create big steps to fun

Got a staircase in your childhood? If so, I’ll bet – like me – you were always just a step away from great adventures.

The neighbor kids and I used to push our Slinkys down Laurel Watkins’ steep steps that led to her basement. Other times, those same stairs became either a badge of courage or sum of all fears when we ran and leapt over the final four. To push five – now, that’s what we called adventure.

The staircase in Sherrie Leffel’s 1940s-era home provided great adventures. “We loved sliding down the banister! Sometimes, when we were called down to dinner, we took two or three turns each,” said Leffel. She and her siblings eventually graduated to climbing over the railing and hanging over the stairs. Until they discovered laundry basket races.

“We ran up, jumped in a basket, scooted on the floor and pushed off,” said Leffel. Their baskets – and laughter – bounced down each step.

“Pretty soon we’d all be going at once. We landed at the bottom in a heap of kids and baskets. When someone started crying, we’d stop until the next time we could sneak it in,” Leffel said, stressing they only raced when Mom was away.

Joy Venton and her sister have great staircase memories. "We were about 5 or 6 years old when we started sliding down the stairway on our blankets. We had so much fun!” said Venton.

Then there’s Val Hix, who counts staircase adventures as “one of my favorite childhood memories,” she said.

Hix and her family took six-week road trips each summer from Covington, La. to her Grandma Moo’s and Grandpa Holly’s old farmhouse in rural Washington.

“My brother, sister and I spent many days with our cousins on the farm. On rainy days we spent the day downstairs. We all loved to bump down the steps and see how fast we could get going, racing two at a time to see who was the fastest,” said Hix.

The challenge was to avoid a brick hearth at the bottom, Hix recalled.

“We bumped for so long that our backsides were sore, bruised and rug-burned. But did that stop us? No way – we just kept going. And we always remembered to shut the door at the top of the stairs, thinking no one had a clue as to what we were really doing!” laughed Hix

Whether sliding down on blankets, baskets, or our bottoms, one thing’s for sure: I’ll bet you were always just a step away from great adventures.

Copyright © 2007 by Judy Halone