Childhood Memories: My Top Secret Laboratory

How many children have their own top-secret laboratory at the age of eight? Deep in the cellar of our family home were stored a great variety of discarded machines and components, random materials, and my father’s collection of tools. I took advantage of this neglected and forgotten underground space to create a fully functional laboratory and workshop where I was free to imagine and perform scientific experiments. I created my own curriculum of scientific study, I learned at my own pace and in my own way.

My workshop was huge, encompassing the entire footprint of the largest house in the neighborhood. A generic wooden staircase descended into the middle of the room, splitting the floor plan into four main sections. The left side of the wall facing the base of the stairs was lined with the hot water tank and furnace that warmed the water for our house. Mysterious noises would emanate from this area of the basement. Sometimes my brothers would cruelly turn off the switch at the top of the stairs and the only light in the room would be the flickering blue glow of the furnace reflecting on the shiny concrete floor.

Turning right to face the front of the house, one long windowless wall was lined floor to ceiling with steel shelves. These muscle rack units were stacked with junk and treasures packed into boxes and old luggage. There did not seem to be any order to what was in each container. It was up to me and my brothers to find out. The lower shelves were filled with boxes of our old toys and broken sports equipment. This discarded bric-a-brac became raw materials for make believe and fantasy. The upper shelves seemed to contain older items, foreign detritus from our parent’s childhoods. Reaching these archaic items was dange...

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... would stop working afterwards.

I lost interest in those batteries once I discovered the power of alternating current. In fact my favorite toy growing up was an old electrical power cord that had been pulled out of a lamp. I don’t remember where I found it. Maybe in one of those boxes on the shelves, or more likely, I cut it off a lamp myself. I used to run tests where I’d send 120 volts of alternating current through various materials, and observe the results. My favorite objects to observe were metal bolts; they would get white hot. I could pick them up with pliers and burn hexagonal holes in paper or plastic. Now that I know a bit more about electricity, I realize my experiments could have caused some serious accidents. But I learned more about the principles of nature by getting electrocuted through that damn lamp cord, than I ever could have in a classroom.