Many years ago, when I was eight years old, early 50's, televisions were a rare commodity. My neighbor Rod had a television and John Reed had the other one in our community of 1200 people. You could say, my home town of Barrackville West Virginia was a little behind the times. Captain Video, Flash Gordon and Howdy Doody were the most watched shows. A few years later we purchased a DuMont set. My dad used to watch Dinah Shore, Loretta Young and Buddy Hackett. Dinah was his show girl to admire and Buddy was a special comedian who made him laugh until tears ran from his eyes. I remember the first color TV was a sheet of red, blue and green plastic placed over the screen. It looked a little like, Neapolitan ice cream.
Like I was saying, my neighbor Rod had a TV and his parents always let me watch it in the evening with them. I remember there were two nights of TV I never missed, the Wednesday night boxing matches, and Saturday night spooky movies. The boxing matches were not so bad, but the spooky movies really gave me a scare.
I recall watching Joe Lewis fight once, along with Jersey Joe Walcot. One of my favorites was Rocky Marciana. These fellows were great fighters however as with most things, they had to move over for bigger and better fighters. The fight game has changed little over the years. I recall when Jersey Joe Walcot was to defend his crown. Arthur Argar, a neighbor who rented Rod's parents garage to park his car at nights, poked his head in to see how the fight was getting along. Rod's dad offered him a chair; however he refused and said he would just stand. The fight started and no sooner than the words had gotten out of Mr. West's mouth, Jersey Joe was knocked out. Now doesn't this sound a little familiar. It seemed to me after Marciana was champ, there were no white fighters in championship fights ever again. There may have been a few, I just don't remember them.
Saturday night, as I was saying, was spooky movie night. Rod and I kept our eyes glued to the TV when characters like Frankenstein, Zombies, Vampires and Hobgoblins filled the screen. Sometimes Rod's mother would come into the room and scream, nearly causing us to go into delirium. 
She could make my hair raise straight up on my head. As long as I was in Rod's house, I could hold my own watching the horror show. It was when I had to go home, around eleven o'clock, that things got a little out of hand.
When the shows were over, I would call my mom on the phone and ask her to open the kitchen door and watch for me. For weeks I made the ghost run from Rod's house to my mother's house without a hitch. Rod's family used to really get a kick watching me run home. What they did not realize, the 
Frankinsteins, became real to me in the darkness and lurked around every corner, bush and tree. It was up to me to out run them to my kitchen door. Mother's presence, standing in the doorway, was like putting a string of garlic around my neck to prevent vampires and the like from catching me.
Rod's house had a high porch surrounded with bushes, I don't recall a porch light. Before I left his front door, I always looked to see if my mother had opened the kitchen door. This particular night was a hot summer evening and my dad had left the main door open to the kitchen. Having made this run hundreds of times, I anticipated my mother opening the screen door for me. Call it a fluke but this is what happened.
Leaving Rod's house, I ran from his porch, jumped three steps and made it by the corner of his house without being snatched by a Zombie. As I made the turn to run down his walkway, Whitey Reed, his next door neighbor, sitting on his shadowy front steps, coughed or cleared his throat. I was sure that Frankinstein had made a move to grab me. I immediately upped my speed to over drive and nearly tore my head off on our apple tree. It grew at the corner of our backyard and had low hanging limbs filled with apples. When I hit the tree limb, I thought the Vampire, Dracula, had me by the neck. I smacked half of the apples off the limbs, and gave a desperation scream for help.
From the apple tree to the kitchen door, approximately 30 feet, I yelled, "open the door!, open the door!" As I sped through the back yard and made a jump for the back porch, the screen door was closed and my mother was nowhere in sight. There was only one thing for me to do, dive head first straight through the bottom of the screen door, breaking the sound barrier and the screen door at the same time. From break neck speed, I came to a sudden stop directly under my dad's chair. Because the kitchen door was open, and they were sitting at the table drinking coffee, they didn't think it was necessary to open the door. They did not realize, my fright was so great, I could not take the time to open the door. To pause at the door, would have been doomsday for me and I would me duck soup for the hobgoblins who were one step behind me. As I slid under my dad's chair, everyone jumped to their feet with a startled look. "My God Joe," my dad exclaimed. "I didn't know you really meant to have the door open, I mean really open. Are you really that frightened?" "What do you think? Seeee, they didn't get me.
The next day we repaired the screen door and he explained to me, the movies were only make believe, and the creatures were merely people dressed up in costumes. He ask me if I thought it was dark in the mine? I said, "yesdaddy." You see, I'm still here and I am OK. Now don't you think if those creatures were real, they would have gotten hold of me by now? Yes daddy! Then from now on, I want you to walk home from Rod's or you don't watch the movies any more. Yes Daddy! Saturday night came again and I was in my regular place on Rod's floor watching TV. After the show I walked home for the first time, and nearly fainted as I nearly ripped the screen door off it's hinges. "Now you see", my daddy would say, "practice makes perfect. "Each time it will be a little easier. You might ask by slowing down, did the Hobgoblins disappear? My answer, Noooo! They just got slower!
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