The home in which I grew up was a small place. It was in a row of houses actually at the beginning of the row so although one side was attached to the neighbors the other side was open to an alleyway which during the day was a terrific place to play tag but at night was an ominous tunnel which everyone in our row knew was the home to any imagined monster. If you sat in our living room and dared to lean forward while sitting on our sofa you could actually see two sights which could curdle your blood when it was dark and dreary outside. We had a huge dining room window which overlooked the alleyway and worse it was right above the 12 steps which led to our basement. The second sight was a small window inside the frame of our kitchen door leading to the backyard of our house. Our backyard lead to a driveway which was surrounded by very old garages and of course an area of trees which everyone from our block new could hide the most frightening of creatures who came out at night. We had curtains for the dining room window, rather thin curtains which my little sister and I knew did not do much to hide the scary faces of what lived in the alley at night; and our kitchen door window had none. Why God, oh why!
Saturday nights in Pittsburgh was Chiller Theater time on channel 11 WIIC and its host was Chilly Billy. At first Chiller Theater had one movie for the audiences viewing pleasure and then it became a Double Chiller Theater. My parents never really minded my little sister and I watching these horror movies and honestly the only rule of the night was if we did stay up past 11:30 was to make sure we turned off the front porch lights and the living room lights. Both requests might seem rather simple, but when you have been watching monsters on television for about 2 hours and you must then shut the lights of a house which suddenly seemed larger and more menacing then ever and had to escape from the first floor to the second floor hoping not be grabbed by whatever was or is lurking just waiting for you in the dark, this task was daunting, dubious and dangerous. Most of the movies on Chiller Theater were about monsters that waited for you outside. Whenever those movies were on the television as afraid as my sister and I might have been we both knew that we were inside, so no matter what as long as the front door was locked (which we both made sure of at least 5 times) and the back door was locked (which we made sure of while my parents were still awake, because we knew if they weren’t around something would certainly grab us) and the that damn see through curtain in the dining room was completely closed(even a thin line appearing onto the scary alley could coerce a demon to peek in), we knew that no monster could enter. But sometimes Chilly Billy would show movies about the monsters INSIDE the house. These monsters hid in basements, which we had(it also had an old coal cellar and my sister and I knew if anything lived in our basement it called that space home), or closets(one we had between the living room and dining room which the door never would stay shut or worse in one of the bedrooms on the second floor.(We had three and mine was in the rear of the house and I knew I had about three seconds to walk upstairs get under the covers before I was attacked). My little sister and I during the safety of day realized that the scariest monsters were those who MIGHT be in our house.
Tuesday night we had another peek at the candidates from the GOP who want to be president. For me that was scary enough watching these men and one woman lie, fabricate and exaggerate. This group of “wannabe’s” decided that they would use the old playbook of fear, and if you watched the entire debate you heard horror stories and epic examples of the WORST case scenarios. Person to person they mentioned the monsters outside and how they would carpet bomb, have boots on the ground, over throw governments, or just nuke, nuke, nuke. But who IS the real monster? None of them recognized that they were the monsters inside…denying women freedom for their own reproductive health…homosexuals the right to marry, adopt and be safe in the work place…people of color equal protection from the police…children of immigrants born in this country…safe passage in this country…the elimination of social security as if it was a socialist enemy…the elimination of affordable health care for all. My little sister and I knew the scariest of monsters were the ones in the house. If you watched CNN on Tuesday night you could see an ominous array of monsters waiting for you in your living room.
