When I was a kid my folks had this dank basement under a ranch style home.  Everyday my father would return home from work and ask me to grab a soda pop from the cellar, everyday I would have preferred to be anywhere else so that I didn't have to go into that horrible basement.  For one thing, there was thickness to the air, an aroma cocktail of mold and stale cigar smoke. The overhead lights were dim, sixty watt bulbs in thirty year old recessed fixtures.  The basement was creepy...very, very, creepy.  Brown flooring, cinder blocks painted a taupe color which in my humble opinion is not a real color anyway...but there was something else in that basement, a presence of uncertainty. I believe I was about ten years old and had just entered the cellar when the door slammed closed behind me.   I was trapped, trapped in a room where potatoes were wrinkled, the water pump was leaking and slimy mushrooms stood in an army of eyes peering out from the home canning on the third shelf.  It was then I wondered where my book was, and yet I had no idea what book I was wondering about.   I felt violated in a way, violated about a book?  Was it my diary?  Did my older sister read my diary again?  No, it wasn't that...it was a guest book.  Now what ten year old would have a guest book, especially a ten year old living back in 1977? There was a strange noise echoing from the pump.  I approached with great unease and placed my ear to the steel gut of the tank.  Beyond the flow of water I heard destiny calling.  Not only did my mind travel at that point, but my heart did as well.  I knew my future in that moment...there would be great happiness, as well as great loss.  There would be a book, along with that particular novel, there would be a guest book except no guests could be encouraged by others to read that book for the voices before had been erased. I was greatly confused by the voice from the pump...greatly confused about guests and books.   I never told anyone about the missing guest book, I just figured that someday I'd find it once again, whatever a guest book was to a ten year old back in the seventies. So if you are guests here and would like to sign my book, if you can find it, please by all means, sign it!   Personally, I believe it teleported back to 1977 and is somewhere in that dreadful cellar next to a can of SPAM under the row of home canned mushrooms.  (By the way, I wouldn't recommend eating those mushrooms just in case you should be tempted...you know the saying, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger?"  Trust me, those things might just kill you, that or put hair on your chest, either way the end result would not be favorable.) Actually back in those days SPAM had a better flavor than what I have experienced in present day.   The truth is, I wish you could sign a guest book here, but internet bullies have stolen it from my site.  That's okay because I have every confidence that internet bullies will probably spam each other for eternity...it'll be one big Spam-o-rama to the death! Well, if you've made it this far with my ramblings...congratulations.  Turn off the lights on your way out and have a wonderful evening...maybe toast me with a can of SPAM or eat some spam with a bit of toast! Best wishes, JMStevenson