The Thing in the Cellar

I think I told everyone that my brother David was wonderful and that he read the classics to me when I was very young. He also had an interesting sense of humor and one night when our parents were not home he gathered me, Betty Ann, and Carol around him and said he was going to read us a nice story before we went to bed. Linda and Mary Jane were not born yet. To understand what happened you have to read the complete story below. At the end of the story I will tell you what happened, but read the story first or it will spoil the after story.

The Thing in the Cellar
by David H. Keller, MD
(1932)
The Psychology of Fear

It was a large cellar, entirely out of proportion to the house above it. The owner admitted that it was probably built for a distinctly different kind of structure from the one which rose above it. Probably the first house had been burned, and poverty had caused a diminution of the dwelling erected to take its place.

A winding stone stairway connected the cellar with the kitchen. Around the base of this series of steps successive owners of the house had placed their firewood, winter vegetables and junk. The junk had gradually been pushed back till it rose, head high, in a barricade of uselessness. What was back of that barricade no one knew and no one cared. For some hundreds of years no one had crossed it to penetrate to the black reaches of the cellar behind it.

At the top of the steps, separating the kitchen from the cellar, was a stout oaken door. This door was, in a way, as peculiar and out of relation to the rest of the house as the cellar. It was a strange kind of door to find in a modern house, and certainly a most unusual door to find in the inside of the house — thick, stoutly built, dexterously rabbeted together with huge wrought-iron hinges, and a lock that looked as though it came from Castle Despair. Separating a house from the outside world, such a door would be excusable; swinging between kitchen and cellar it seemed peculiarly inappropriate.

From the earliest months of his life Tommy Tucker seemed unhappy in the kitchen. In the front parlor, in the formal dining-room, and especially on the second floor of the house he acted like a normal, healthy child; but carry him to the kitchen, he at once began to cry. His parents, being plain people, ate in the kitchen save when they had company. Being poor, Mrs. Tucker did most of her work, though occasionally she had a charwoman in to do the extra Saturday cleaning, and thus much of her time was spent in the kitchen. And Tommy stayed with her, at least as long as he was unable to walk. Much of the time he was decidedly unhappy.

When Tommy learned to creep, he lost no time in leaving the kitchen. No sooner was his mother’s back turned than the little fellow crawled as fast as he could for the doorway opening into the front of the house, the dining-room and the front parlor. Once away from the kitchen, he seemed happy; at least, he ceased to cry. On being returned to the kitchen his howls so thoroughly convinced the neighbors that he had colic that more than one bowl of catnip and sage tea was brought to his assistance.

It was not until the boy learned to talk that the Tuckers had any idea as to what made the boy cry so hard when he was in the kitchen. In other words, the baby had to suffer for many months till he obtained at least a little relief, and even when he told his parents what was the matter, they were absolutely unable to comprehend. This is not to be wondered at because they were both hard-working, rather simple-minded persons.

What they finally learned from their little son was this: that if the cellar door was shut and securely fastened with the heavy iron Tommy could at least eat a meal in peace; if the door was simply closed and not locked, he shivered with fear, but kept quiet; but if the door was open, if even the slightest streak of black showed that it was not tightly shut, then the little three-year-old would scream himself to the point of exhaustion, especially if his tired father would refuse him permission to leave the kitchen.

Playing in the kitchen, the child developed two interesting habits. Rags, scraps of paper and splinters of wood were continually being shoved under the thick oak door to fill the space between the door and the sill. Whenever Mrs. Tucker opened the door there was always some trash there, placed by her son. It annoyed her, and more than once the little fellow was thrashed for this conduct, but punishment acted in no way as a deterrent. The other habit was as singular. Once the door was closed and locked, he would rather boldly walk over to it and caress the old lock. Even when he was so small that he had to stand on tiptoe to touch it with the tips of his fingers he would touch it with slow caressing strokes; later on, as he grew, he used to kiss it.

His father, who only saw the boy at the end of the day, decided that there was no sense in such conduct, and in his masculine way tried to break the lad of his foolishness. There was, of necessity, no effort on the part of the hard-working man to understand the psychology back of his son’s conduct. All that the man knew was that his little son was acting in a way that was decidedly queer.

Tommy loved his mother and was willing to do anything he could to help her in the household chores, but one thing he would not do, and never did do, and that was to fetch and carry between the house and the cellar. If his mother opened the door, he would run screaming from the room, and he never returned voluntarily till he was assured that the door was closed.

He never explained just why he acted as he did. In fact, he refused to talk about it, at least to his parents, and that was just as well, because had he done so, they would simply have been more positive than ever that there was something wrong with their only child. They tried, in their own ways, to break the child of his unusual habits; failing to change him at all, they decided to ignore his peculiarities.

That is, they ignored them till he became six years old and the time came for him to go to school. He was a sturdy little chap by that time, and more intelligent than the usual boys beginning in the primer class. Mr. Tucker was, at times, proud of him; the child’s attitude toward the cellar door was the one thing most disturbing to the father’s pride. Finally nothing would do but that the Tucker family call on the neighborhood physician. It was an important event in the life of the Tuckers, so important that it demanded the wearing of Sunday clothes, and all that sort of thing.

“The matter is just this, Doctor Hawthorn,” said Mr. Tucker, in a somewhat embarrassed manner. “Our little Tommy is old enough to start to school, but he behaves childish in regard to our cellar, and the missus and I thought you could tell us what to do about it. It must be his nerves.”

Ever since he was a baby,” continued Mrs. Tucker, taking up the thread of conversation where her husband had paused, “Tommy has had a great fear of the cellar. Even now, big boy that he is, he does not love me enough to fetch and carry for me through that door and down those steps. It is not natural for a child to act like he does, and what with chinking the cracks with rags and kissing the lock, he drives me to the point where I fear he may become daft-like as he grows older.”

The doctor, eager to satisfy new customers, and dimly remembering some lectures on the nervous system received when he was a medical student, asked some general questions, listened to the boy’s heart, examined his lungs and looked at his eyes and fingernails. At last he commented:

“Looks like a fine, healthy boy to me.”

“Yes, all except the cellar door,” replied the father.

“Has he ever been sick?”

“Naught but fits once or twice when he cried himself blue in the face,” answered the mother.

“Frightened?”

“Perhaps. It was always in the kitchen.”

“Suppose you go out and let me talk to Tommy by myself?”

And there sat the doctor very much at his ease and the little six-year-old boy very uneasy.

“Tommy, what is there in the cellar you are afraid of?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you ever seen it?”

“No, sir.”

“Ever heard it? smelt it?”

“No, sir.”

“Then how do you know there is something there?”

“Because.”

“Because what?”

“Because there is.”

That was as far as Tommy would go, and at last his seeming obstinacy annoyed the physician even as it had for several years annoyed Mr. Tucker. He went to the door and called the parents into the office.

“He thinks there is something down in the cellar,” he stated.

The Tuckers simply looked at each other.

“That’s foolish,” commented Mr. Tucker.

“‘Tis just a plain cellar with junk and firewood and cider barrels in it,” added Mrs. Tucker. “Since we moved into that house, I have not missed a day without going down those stone steps and I know there is nothing there. But the lad has always screamed when the door was open. I recall now that since he was a child in arms he has always screamed when the door was open.”

“He thinks there is something there,” said the doctor.

“That is why we brought him to you,” replied the father. “It’s the child’s nerves. Perhaps foetida, or something, will calm him.”

“I tell you what to do,” advised the doctor. “He thinks there is something there. Just as soon as he finds that he is wrong and that there is nothing there, he will forget about it. He has been humored too much. What you want to do is to open that cellar door and make him stay by himself in the kitchen. Nail the door open so he can not close it. Leave him alone there for an hour and then go and laugh at him and show him how silly it was for him to be afraid of an empty cellar. I will give you some nerve and blood tonic and that will help, but the big thing is to show him that there is nothing to be afraid of.”

On the way back to the Tucker home Tommy broke away from his parents. They caught him after an exciting chase and kept him between them the rest of the way home. Once in the house he disappeared and was found in the guest room under the bed. The afternoon being already spoiled for Mr. Tucker, he determined to keep the child under observation for the rest of the day. Tommy ate no supper, in spite of the urgings of the unhappy mother. The dishes were washed, the evening paper read, the evening pipe smoked; and then, and only then, did Mr. Tucker take down his tool box and get out a hammer and some long nails.

“And I am going to nail the door open, Tommy, so you can not close it, as that was what the doctor said. Tommy, and you are to be a man and stay here in the kitchen alone for an hour, and we will leave the lamp a-burning, and then when you find there is naught to be afraid of, you will be well and a real man and not something for a man to be ashamed of being the father of.”

But at the last Mrs. Tucker kissed Tommy and cried and whispered to her husband not to do it, and to wait till the boy was larger; but nothing was to do except to nail the thick door open so it could not be shut and leave the boy there alone with the lamp burning and the dark open space of the doorway to look at with eyes that grew as hot and burning as the flame of the lamp.

That same day Doctor Hawthorn took supper with a classmate of his, a man who specialized in psychiatry and who was particularly interested in children. Hawthorn told Johnson about his newest case, the little Tucker boy, and asked him for his opinion, Johnson frowned.

“Children are odd, Hawthorn. Perhaps they are like dogs. It may be their nervous system is more acute than in the adult. We know that our eyesight is limited, also our hearing and smell. I firmly believe that there are forms of life which exist in such a form that we can neither see, hear nor smell them. Fondly we delude ourselves into the fallacy of believing that they do not exist because we cannot prove their existence. This Tucker lad may have a nervous system that is peculiarly acute. He may dimly appreciate the existence of something in the cellar which is unappreciable to his parents. Evidently there is some basis to this fear of his. Now, I am not saying that there is anything in the cellar. In fact, I suppose that it is just an ordinary cellar, but this boy, since he was a baby, has thought that there was something there, and that is just as bad as though there actually were. What I would like to know is what makes him think so. Give me the address, and I will call tomorrow and have a talk with the little fellow.”

“What do you think of my advice?”

“Sorry, old man, but I think it was perfectly rotten. If I were you, I would stop around there on my way home and prevent them from following it. The little fellow may be badly frightened. You see, he evidently thinks there is something there.”

“But there isn’t.”

“Perhaps not. No doubt, he is wrong, but he thinks so.”

It all worried Doctor Hawthorn so much that he decided to take his friend’s advice. It was a cold night, a foggy night, and the physician felt cold as he tramped along the London streets. At last he came to the Tucker house. He remembered now that he had been there once before, long ago, when little Tommy Tucker came Into the world. There was a light in the front window, and in no time at all Mr. Tucker came to the door.

“I have come to see Tommy,” said the doctor.

“He is back in the kitchen,” replied the father.

“He gave one cry, but since then he has been quiet,” sobbed the wife.

“If I had let her have her way, she would have opened the door, but I said to her, ‘Mother, now is the time to make a man out of our Tommy.’ And I guess he knows by now that there was naught to be afraid of. Well, the hour is up. Suppose we go and get him and put him to bed?”

“It has been a hard time for the little child,” whispered the wife.

Carrying the candle, the man walked ahead of the woman and the doctor, and at last opened the kitchen door. The room was dark.

“Lamp has gone out,” said the man. “Wait till I light it.”

“Tommy! Tommy!” called Mrs. Tucker.

But the doctor ran to where a white form was stretched on the floor. Sharply he called for more light. Trembling, he examined all that was left of little Tommy. Twitching, he looked into the open space down into the cellar. At last he looked at Tucker and Tucker’s wife.

“Tommy — Tommy has been hurt — I guess he is dead!” he stammered.

The mother threw herself on the floor and picked up the torn, mutilated thing that had been, only a little while ago, her little Tommy.

The man took his hammer and drew out the nails and closed the door and locked it and then drove in a long spike to reinforce the lock. Then he took hold of the doctor’s shoulders and shook him.

“What killed him, Doctor? What killed him?” he shouted into Hawthorn’s ear.

The doctor looked at him bravely in spite of the fear in his throat.

“How do I know, Tucker?” he replied. “How do I know? Didn’t you tell me that there was nothing there? Nothing down there? In the cellar?”

That was the story David told us before we were supposed to go to sleep. We were all upset and scarred.

The next day Mom baked some wonderful cakes which she made from scratch in a big heavy white bowl. It was the heaviest bowl in the house, it wouldn't move when you were mixing in it, it weighed at least 10 pounds. We ate the cakes after dinner and after dinner I knew I had to carry the bowl into our big dark basement. That is where we stored it.

I didn't want to admit I was afraid and it seemed no one was looking so I ran down the steps into the basement with fear bubbling all through me. As I neared the bottom of the steps a monstrous form rushed toward me from the shadows, every cell in by body screamed for me to run back up the stairs, but I knew it would have gotten me before I could turn and get away.

I did what all the heroes in all the classics that David had read me would do. I raised that heavy bowl over my head and started to swing it down with all of my strength on the skull of the monster in the cellar and as I was bringing it down I recognized the monster as my brother.  I would have killed him with that heavy bowl and I knew it, as I tried to reverse all of my muscles at once. I stopped it a fraction of an inch from his head and felt like punching him as hard as I could.

Letter From the Governor to Drive as Fast as I Could

During my first 11 years working, you all know that I was a photojournalist in NJ. I had many adventures, here is one I remember.

I was taking pictures of the Governor of New Jersey, William Cahill.

I don't remember why, it was 45 years ago, but it was critically important that the picture I took got in the morning edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The newspaper was printed in Philadelphia but it covered South Jersey and was the biggest, newspaper in the area.  The Inquirer had a strict deadline for photos and news and Cahill, of course, knew that. I also knew him from previous assignments. He told me that I had to get to the Inquirer in 15 minutes with the picture I had taken, and gave me a special note from the Governor, saying that I was on official government business and if stopped to escort me to the Enquirer and not give me a ticket. He told me to drive as fast as I could.
I ran to my car and drove at over 100 miles per hour over the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, most cars didn't go much faster back then, and mine was one of them. I was hoping to see a police car chasing me so that I could show them the note.

The Benjamin Franklin Bridge

This is what my camera looked like

I was also wondering if I pulled the slide to have the film exposed on my 4" x 5" film in my Speed Graphic camera. I didn't know what would happen to me if I didn't have a picture on that film. All cameras were film cameras back then with no light meters, auto-focus, or anything automatic. I had forgotten to pull the slide only a few times in my life and as I drove I was hoping this wasn't one of them.

I got to the Enquirer in time and waited until they developed the film, it came out perfect and appeared in the Inquirer the next day. I could continue to live another day as a photojournalist.

The Snowy Owl

A long, long time ago, I came face to face with a Snowy Owl. Here it is about 60 years later and I still vividly remember the encounter, it was more than a meeting of a boy and a bird, there was something special and kind of spiritual about the meeting.

It was back around 1954, I was 13 or 14, Frank Sinatra was 39 and had just won an Oscar for his portrayal of the Italian-American soldier Maggio in From Here to Eternity. You all should watch the film, it is in my top 10. Elvis Presley was recording his first song at 19, in Memphis Tennessee and I was stareing into the big yellow eyes of a giant pure white Snowy Owl.

I was dragging up my last tree of the night and it was just starting to get dark. The presence of another life form was flooding my senses as I reached the house, looking up, my eyes met the eyes of a creature that seemed bigger than me. It was sitting on the limb of a tree at about eye level so I had to look up into those eyes that had no fear but had a powerful complete command of the situation. It was a moment where I felt it was showing me how to gain and hold power. It gave me a long intense time of connection and then with the power of wings wider then my outstretched arms, it was gone.

Running From a Shotgun Blast with MJ on My Sholders

I was talking with Your Aunt Mary Jane today and she remembered when I ran back to our house on 4th of July with her on my shoulders as a man with a shot gun was shooting at us.

Here is the Story

It was the 4th of July and Mary Jane said she was 5 or 6 so I would have been about 17 and it was about 1958. Some of our relatives and friends from Philadelphia would come to our house on 4th of July. The 4th of July was a lot of fun when we were growing up. There were competitions in the morning for the kids. Cutest baby, fattest baby, best decorated bicycle, and other competition, and the winners would get to be in our towns, big parade. There were more competitions and baseball games latter in the day, a big party at our house, all day and night, and of course the fireworks just as it got dark. Many things were going on at the same time all day and all night. One of the things we did was to take the kids from Philly into the woods and have adventures. This particular day we were at the ledges and little cliffs that were made when they built the NJ Turnpike, which ran right through the forest we lived next to, about a mile in. The NJ Turnpike was completed on November 30, 1951, when I was 10 years old.

At Jessica's Request, My Most Embarrassing Moment

You all know what it is, but you might get an additional chuckle here.

As you know one of my jobs was a wedding photographer. I got my own wedding gigs through word of mouth and I also worked for a studio and was sent out by them on the day of the wedding. I did weddings when I was 19 to 26. I stopped when I was 26 because I married your Mother, Jill, and while spending Saturday, shooting weddings until sometimes late into the night was great fun when I was single, I wanted to have my Saturday nights with Linda, when we got married.

So here I was on a Saturday, some time between 19 and 26 at St Teresa's Church in Runnemede doing a big wedding. The church is big and beautiful with stained glass windows which let in a beautiful light as the ceremony was progressing. I was running around the church getting fantastic shots in the beautiful light. I headed toward the back of the church because I wanted to get away from the crowd because I really needed to fart. I got to the back of the church just as the bride and groom were starting to say their wedding vows so I figured I better fart and get up front for the wedding kiss. I farted away from everyone, at the very back of the acoustically perfect church and it sounded like a rifle went off. The sound echoed through the church. Everyone in the church turned around including the bride and groom. The priest just looked up from his bible. There I was at the back of the church with about 200 people looking at me and nowhere to hide. I turned around and looked behind me hoping that someone might be there but there was just the church wall behind me, everyone at the wedding knew it was me and I had to face them all as their photographer the rest of the day. It was definitely the most embarrassing event of my life.

Took Pictures of Two Presidents

In 1960 at the age of 18 I got my first job as an adult working for a local weekly newspaper called the Observer. I worked there for 11 years and did almost all the jobs there. My favorite job in the early years was taking pictures and writing stories for the newspaper. Today that position is called a photojournalist, back than I was a photographer and writer. I did lots of other things through the years, I eventually became plant manager and finally vice president but I always liked photography the most and continued to do it when I could even when I became vice president.

I met President Nixon three times. The last time I saw him, I arrived early, at a meeting where he was going to speak. He was there early also and when I got there he said hello Joe. I was shocked that the President remembered my name but all politicians of any level have it in there DNA to remember everyone's name. We just stood there like regular guys talking for a few minutes. I don't remember what we talked about, it was just casual conversation.

When I met Johnson there was no conversation with me, he was with Soviet Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin and I was just one of many photographers there.

The Glassboro Summit

"This Day in Diplomacy: U.S.-Soviet Summit at Glassboro, New Jersey. Thirty years ago today President Lyndon Johnson and Soviet Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin and their diplomatic and military advisers met at Glassboro, New Jersey. This impromptu Summit addressed the Arab-Israeli tensions in the Middle East following the Six Day War of June 1967 and took steps toward serious U.S.-Soviet arms limitations and agreement to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other nations. Following an emergency UN Security Council meeting in New York in mid June 1967 to discuss the recently concluded Six Day War, Soviet and American officials hurriedly organized an unplanned Summit meeting between President Johnson and Prime Minister Kosygin. Disagreements between the two sides on the locale for a meeting eventually led to the decision on June 22 to meet at Glassboro State College in New Jersey, exactly mid-way between New York City and Washington. The usual elaborate Summit preparations were telescoped into just a few hours. The surprised President of Glassboro State was abruptly moved out of his home, which became the site for the two days of heads of government meetings. President Johnson and Prime Minister Kosygin and their translators met in the study while Secretary of State Rusk, Secretary of Defense McNamara, Soviet Foreign Minister  Andrew Gromyko, and Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin cooled their heels for long hours in the small living room. 

The pictures are not mine, they are from Google, I might have mine in one of my boxes stored away. They met in 1967 in Glassboro, I don't think I was living in Pitman when they met but a little later Linda and I bought a house that was only about a mile from where they met in the neighboring town of Pitman.

A Warm Kiss From a Stranger in the Atlantic Ocean at Dawn

My last blog ended in a shower of bullets, this blog is about a very unexpected warm kiss from someone I hardly knew in the Atlantic Ocean at dawn.

I was about 35 around the year 1977

 I was on an emergency business trip to Raleigh North Carolina, and had to stay overnight. We "Webcraft" had just gotten the contract for the Carol Wright coupon envelope and we were printing 13,000,000 at a time. I was in charge of the project and the envelopes were spliting in the mail after the coupons were inserted in Raleigh.   I ended up in a bar with a pool table and talked with a girl at the bar who I eventually played pool with the rest of the night. We exchanged phone numbers and said we would call like people do, but usually don't.

I did try to call her but didn't get an answer, most people didn't have cell phones back then. I found out she was in the hospital, I sent her flowers and a few calls later she agreed to visit me in NJ. She was going to stay for the weekend so I arranged for a double date with Eric and whoever he got to go with him so the two girls could have a separate room because the girl I invited made it clear that she was coming up for a date and not to expect anything else from her. not even a kiss. I felt that was fair, we would see how the weekend went, no promises. We went to the Jersey shore, and had a fun filled day and evening. We finally went to our hotel and Eric had gotten a date with a girl he had dated a few years before. He asked me and the girl I was with if we would sleep in the one hotel room because it had two beds, because he felt that he and Elanor, his old girl friend could have some time to themselves. The girl I was with said it was OK because she felt save with me. I realized that we would only be friends because I knew she was not interested in me romantically and I kind of felt the same way, but really liked her as a friend. We both felt comfortable with each other so sleeping in separate beds in our hotel room was no problem.

I talked with my date for a while and we went to bed in our separate beds and everything was fine. Just as I was falling asleep there was a soft knock on the door. I got up and there at the door was Elanor with her bag in her hand. She said she had a fight with Eric and could I find a way for her to get back to North Jersey, right outside New York city, or could she stay in our room. She was beautiful and Polish and I knew I couldn't get her to New York and back in time to get my date to the airport in Philadelphia to catch her flight so I said stay here. I let her sleep in my bed and pulled two chairs together and tried to sleep there.

Here I was, with two vibrant beautiful woman in my hotel room in the two beds and I was twisted between two chairs. I could hear them both softly breathing. What the hell was I doing here, I couldn't sleep, I decided to jump in the ocean about a block away. It was pitch dark outside. I was just reaching for the door to leave when Elanor said where are you going. I said I was going for a very early swim. She asked if she could go with me. Of course I said, yes. We ran down to the beach and didn't stop and ran right into the waves. I think she needed the cold reality of a wave hitting her in the face as much as I did. We played and splashed in the waves and were having a good time. We had a moment between waves, the water was lower, I picked her up and started to swirl her around just as the sunlight started to hit the clouds out over the ocean, she kissed me. I was totally surprised, I didn't know her, I was very attracted to her, it had been a very long time since anyone had kissed me. We stood there as the sun came up, passionately kissing each other, hardly noticing when the waves pushed into us. We stayed there for a long time, not talking, just savoring the emotions that were going through us. Something very special happened in the moment that our lips met.

We finally got out of the water and realized we were both famished. We went to a NJ diner and ate voraciously,  and then realized that Eric and my Date were probably wondering what happened to us.

When we got back, my Date and Eric were upset with us. I got my Date to the Philadelphia airport just in time, on the way back to the airport, about a two hour trip, my Date got very interested in me. I think it is a trait of woman and probably men to get interested in someone when they know someone else is interested. I never saw the Date again. Elanor really wanted to see me again and I wanted to see her. I asked Eric if it was OK and he said yes, so the adventure goes on. We had some great times together, we went on a trip to Maine, went to fantastic restaurants in the New York city area, went camping, and she made delicious perogies from scratch.

An added note. I am cleaning out old boxes of stuff, May 23, 2015, and I just found an envelope addressed to the girl from Raleigh, from 38 years ago, don't call me a horder. Her name was Martha Harris.