I’ve always loved to read. It’s a passion. The past few years, though, have been so life-busy I rarely find time to read like I used to. When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was grab the thick Sunday morning edition of the newspaper; unfold it; and sit down to read the comics, Parade Magazine, and the TV Guide.
I sat in front of the TV with my box of Cap’n Crunch cereal and a gallon of milk. At the same time, Mom tried valiantly and semisuccessfully to get everyone, including herself, dressed for church. Dad would be shaving while he mentally went through his sermon outline for the morning service, many times wishing he could come up with a great object lesson for his main point.
As I said, I loved reading. I was totally engrossed in the TV Guide. I read the synopsis for every episode of my favorite shows and looked specifically for which horror movie would be showing on the late Friday night scare-fest.
One thing consistently puzzled me as I read all those little snippets of my favorite shows. The confusing anomaly was almost exclusively confined to the summertime. I went to inquire of my father. He was, of course, shaving.
“Dad, I don’t understand something here.”
He absentmindedly asked, “What’s that?”
“I’m reading what the show is going to be about. It says, ‘Lucy has a bit too much Vitameatavegamin and embarrasses Ricky at a commercial shoot.’ And then it says, ‘Repeat.’ So I go back and read it again, and it says the exact same thing: ‘Lucy has a bit too much Vitameatavegamin and embarrasses Ricky at a commercial shoot. Repeat.’ Dad, I’ve read it five times, and it says the exact same thing every single time!”
I think Dad cut himself with the razor and sported toilet paper to church. When Dad used the incident as his illustration that morning, the congregation erupted into hysterical laughter. Object lesson. Main point.
Most Friday nights, we kids were allowed to stay up a little later since it was a weekend. Being the rogue child, I always begged for more TV. Dad usually relented, rattling off rules I’d heard thousands of times before already and could recite from memory. I could watch TV for a while with the volume turned down to the third-lowest notch on the knob. I was forbidden to watch the horror movie. I was required to turn the TV off before the Mummy, Dracula, or Godzilla crossed our black-and-white screen.
Dad turned off the family room light, the last remaining light in the house, and headed down the dark hallway to bed. I knew if I played my cards right, I would hear his heavy breathing, meaning he was totally asleep, in approximately 4.7 minutes.
I slid off the couch, and with all the stealth I could muster, I tiptoed to the TV, turned down the volume so only I could hear it from the couch, and changed the knob to channel 2, one of only three channels in existence. I crawled back onto the sofa, hid up to my chin with a blanket, and waited, heart pounding, for the opening credits.
Obviously, I had no other option. I already knew which black-and-white monster to prepare for, since the previous Sunday, I’d read the synopsis in the TV Guide twelve times.
It didn’t take long before I was quivering in fear. Which end of the couch was the werewolf crouching behind, waiting for me to uncover one inch of flesh from the blanket?
Everyone knows that any skin or body part covered by a blanket is impervious to attack or dismemberment. A single hair uncovered, though, means certain death.
I’m not sure at what point the fear became too overwhelming, and I fell asleep. It was always before the end of the movie. I never knew who conquered the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I never found out if the good guys shoved Dracula into the sun and burned him to a crisp. And what about all those secondary characters—which, of course, included me—who got eaten by the werewolf?
All I know is that I slept during the movie’s climactic end. I sawed logs while the Native American, in full headdress, performed sign language to the Lord’s Prayer. Finally, I was jerked awake by the annoying test-pattern screen with the one piercing tone that droned on till the next morning, when the station awoke once again.
I quivered, mentally making sure all body parts were covered by the blanket. I listened intently, making sure there was no other movement in the room as I tried to fall back into my terrified sleep.
Then there were steps. Distinct footsteps coming from the hallway.
If I screamed, the Creature from the Black Lagoon would know where I was, and my short, uneventful life would be over. Of course, the slimy creature couldn’t see me, thanks to the magic of the blanket. If I didn’t scream, there was always the possibility it would move right past me to the next room and eat one of my brothers.
So I waited, vainly attempting not to give myself away by breathing or shaking too much. Suddenly, the TV went silent, and the steps moved to the edge of the couch. The blanket was thrown to the side, and there in the darkness, I made out my dad’s form towering above me.
He was ominously quiet.
He couldn’t yell at me without waking the entire household. As custom dictated, Dad walked to the TV and pressed the power button, rendering the room completely black, except for the blistering square residue from the TV test pattern now burned into my retinas. Dad reached down and took my hand, lifted me off the couch, and began the 347-mile trek down the dark hallway.
Pitch black, that hallway. As Dad and I walked, I expected Frankenstein’s monster to lumber out of my already dead sister’s bedroom to attack. We passed the bathroom, where the sightless four-foot-tall spider would crawl out of the toilet to pull me into its commode web.
But oddly enough, now I wasn’t afraid. Actually, I felt like the hero of the tale. I knew nothing was strong enough to overtake me. I could walk through the blackest night, the darkest ink of life, as long as I held tightly to and never let go of my father’s hand.
Minnie Louise Haskins, a twentieth-century British poet, penned one of my favorite quotes in her poem “God Knows”:
I said to the man at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.” So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.
So do not fear, for I am with you: do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
—Isaiah 41:10 NIV
Everyone needs a hand to hold in the dark.
