LIVING in the DARK it seems FOREVER..

The downside of my growing up in the house at 1430 7th Avenue in Rock Island were many but the basement was the worst. The basement was dark, especially at night. I had been afraid of the dark through my entire childhood. My dad went in the army in 1944. One of the duties I had was to put coal in the furnace two times a day, morning and night, every day through the whole winter months. I was 10 going on 11 and the oldest. The basement stairs went down 5 steps to a small landing and turned to the right and then down about 8 more steps. The furnace was at the other end of the basement about 20 feet away. One dim light was hanging in the middle. Along the entire left side was a crawl space that I had to walk by. It was absolutely dark and I was convinced it harbored monsters and ogres and everything bad and was just waiting for me to come closer. I never did. Never once in all the years I lived there. When I finally would make it to the furnace I turned to the left and faced the furnace. When I opened the furnace door I had to stoke the furnace to release the ashes to the bottom. The coal bin was to the right and it had a door but no light. Opening the door was the hardest. What if someone or something was in there. I would hurry very fast to fill the furnace and to remove the ashes. Each and every time I went down there I was waiting to be grabbed at any minute. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that I had to do it. It was my job. There was no one else. This was probably the most traumatic time of my life. I had dreams about that house and the basement for many years off and on. Too many bad things were connected to that house.



50 years later I went back to Rock Island and all the business’s and homes were gone along that block except for that house (above) and one bar that was boarded up. Someone was still living there and a guy was in the yard on the porch. I talked to him and told him that I grew up in that house. He invited me in but I turned him down. I really couldn’t get myself to go in there. Now I wish I would have. Maybe it would have been a closure of sorts. I took some pictures of it on the outside, though. It actually looked better then that when I lived in it.