Mama Kat Thursday: Grandma's Staircase

Next in my series of memories about Grandma Robbins house is "Grandma's Staircase."

Grandma's house in Mantorville, Minnesota was built sometime around the turn of the 20th century. It was a spacious two-story house with stairs: eighteen narrow, good quality hardwood steps that ran straight up to the second floor, with "straight" being a key word. Their upward angle was very steep, steeper then an average staircase.

No carpet or covering. Just plain maple or oak wood steps worn  smooth from like 50 years of use.

(It was the 60's and early 70's when we were visiting.)

It wasn't like the average staircase with rails so you can see the floor below.
Nope, this staircase was installed between walls. No hand-rails.

I'm not even sure it was a whole 30 inches wide--maybe just 28 and the individual steps were below average width as well, so it was very easy to take them two at at time.

If you needed support, you just used the wall. 

Now our home in Indiana was a single story house without stairs, so Grandma's stairs were sort of a novelty and she had no television.

Also, we lived way out in the country and were used to making our own fun. Because our woodsy property was very hilly, we were used to sliding down those hills in snow in winter and just on the leaves in fall.

So, it was no stretch of the imagination for us to decide to "slide down" Grandma's stairs. They were so narrow and smooth and angles just right for our little behinds to just coast down over those slick step edges---a fast, vibrating ride straight down those 18 steps! It was a rush and we laughed and giggled.

 Probably loud, too, as it inevitably drew grown-up attention. Especially, Grandma's. The three of us probably got in a couple slides down before Grandma appear and ask us to stop because "we might get splinters."

So, we'd have to find some other amusement, though I never believed those steps were even remotely prone to splinters. The hardwood was just too smoothly worn.
Even so, looking back, I can see there how there might've been a potential danger of one us accidentally flipping over, then toppling down the rest of the way down---but when you're a kid you hardly think of such things.

Unlike the piano, which we never really completely gave up playing around with, we did give up trying to "slide the stairs," after a couple tires over a couple visits because it drew too much rebuke.

Thanks for Visiting!

(The gif is from Gifhy. I picked it because it conveys the idea, but really, no one can slide carpeted split-level stairs. It's stop-action filmed.)