Fear Itself

 

He was from a family of brothers and, like my own sons, they were rambunctious and boisterous.  Also like my boys, they got a reputation as a group.  It helped that they had so much in common.  Every one of them was well over six feet tall – I’d say about 6’4” or 6’5” each.  They were big boys too, probably at least 250 pounds apiece, and most of that was muscle.  They were rodeo stars in general, specifically known for their ability to bulldog steers.  Like me, they worked for the Division of Youth Services.  With their size and strength troubled kids just didn’t act out on their shifts.  Even the biggest law breaker controlled his anger when they were working.  But my friend had a secret.

He had an unreasonable fear.

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A lot of people have things they’re afraid of, like lions and tigers and bears, oh my.  Being frightened of things like that makes sense though.  After all, those big carnivores can eat people, and have been known to do so on numerous occasions.

I’m talking about unreasonable fears.  You know, the ones that are so blown out of proportion to the actual danger that most reasonable people will admit they don’t make sense.

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One of my friends is a muscular, athletic man about my own age.  There is not much in this world he has to be afraid of.

Our families were taking a trip together once and, as I drove, I noticed that every time we passed a graveyard he would cross himself and kiss a knuckle on his right hand.  I knew he was Catholic and that he was giving the sign of the cross and kissing an imaginary rosary…a way many Catholics ask for God’s blessing.

Since we both had some of our kids with us I didn’t ask him why he was doing it.  I guess he was asking God not to send him to the cemetery, or asking God to bless those who were buried there, but he kept doing it each and every time we passed one.

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The fear of the number 13 is so strong in some people and so pervasive in our population that I’ve heard some construction firms skip that number when building towers.  They jump directly from the 12^th floor to the 14^th.

Other numbers instill even more fear in some sufferers.

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I was in training for my job one time when someone made a joke about the number 666.  Two of my coworkers began to panic.  “No, no, no!” one of them almost screamed.  “Don’t even say that!  Don’t even SAY it!”

Now, I’m a member of the Baptist church and am well aware that at least one verse of the bible has been interpreted to say that 666 is the “mark of the beast”, the antichrist…the evil one.  At the end of days the antichrist and God will engage in a fierce war for the souls of humanity.

But the bible doesn’t say anywhere that we should fear that number in everyday life.

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I understand phobias such as these.  After all, I had some of my own when I was a kid.

Like many youngsters, I was afraid of the dark.  I would go to sleep with my covers over my head because the booger man (I know, it’s correctly called the bogey man but that’s what we called it.) couldn’t get me if he couldn’t see me.  If I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night I’d jump as far away from the bed as I could before I touched the floor so that the booger man who lived under my bed couldn’t grab my feet.

It gets worse.

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In the house where I lived growing up we had the television in the basement because that was the part of the house that stayed coolest in those pre-central air days.  There was no light built into the basement ceiling so my parents hung a swag lamp over Mom’s sewing machine.  The catch was that you had to walk across the basement to get to the switch and feel for it in the dark.  There was a light in the ceiling at the bottom of the stairs but the only switch was at the top of the steps…and my parents didn’t want the light left on as it wasted electricity in those lean times.

One night I had left some schoolwork or something in the basement when we went upstairs and the light bulb in the hallway was out and, of course, we didn’t have a spare bulb.

My dad was a rough, tough World War II veteran and believed that the only way to get over a fear was to face it, head-on.

Long story short, Dad insisted I go back downstairs ALONE to get my homework…in the dark.  In other words, I had to go down those steps in the stygian darkness, and walk all the way through the hallway, past two equally dark rooms that were veritable dens for the booger men, turn on the light long enough to find my stuff, then turn off the light and fight my way through the booger man gauntlet and back up the stairs IN THE DARK…ALONE.

My solution was to run as fast as I could, then they wouldn’t catch me…probably.

Like I said, the first step was to get downstairs.  I may have touched the steps once on my way down and was making good time.  I’m telling you, I was flying.

And that’s when it happened.

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As I passed the dark rooms on either side of the hallway, I glanced at the one on my left, and there was a man standing there!  He was there, just as real as you or me, and he was made out of electricity!

I started to scream!  Mom rescued me and, for once, stood up to my dad.  It was a long time before I settled down.

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After a trauma like that, you’d think I would still be horrified by the dark, but I’m not.  As I grew up, I worked on facing my fears…just like Dad said, only I didn’t try to do it all at once.

Now, I’m not only comfortable in the dark, most people don’t understand how I’m as comfortable as I am.  I may take a flashlight with me, but I only use it when I absolutely have to.  I’m just plain comfortable in the dark.  During deer season, I’ll walk through the dark woods to my stand using just the light of the moon.

I confronted my fears and overcame them.  For that reason, I don’t understand that some people would rather hold onto their fears than face them.

Like my friend.

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Part of my job is, when I work overnight, to check the area at night to make sure everything is locked and safe.  I was doing that one night and came upon a garter snake.  Little, harmless, and friendly, garter snakes don’t hurt anybody.  I quickly caught the little critter and examined it.  It was shiny and healthy, a real serpentine beauty.

My friend was working that night.  Besides being big and boisterous, he was a slow walking and slow talking country boy.  Everything about him told you he wasn’t afraid of anything.

Wrong.

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Trying to break up the boredom of working at night when everyone else was sleeping, I carried the little snake to the window of the room where my friend was sitting.  He sat inside watching the television.  I tapped the glass and held the snake up.

My friend turned slowly, smiling, and looked at me.

Then he exploded from the chair like he’d been ejected from a speeding jet!

I’ve never seen such a big guy move so fast.  He leaped to his feet and, even before he was fully upright, he ran to the back of the room (about 80 feet) and was stopped only by the concrete wall.  He stood, pressing himself against the wall, and screamed, “Get RID of that thing!  Get it OUT of here!”

“He won’t hurt you,” I said through the glass.

He pleaded, “No, but he might make me hurt MYSELF!”

Unreasonable fear.

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President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was right when he said, “All we have to fear is fear itself.”

After all, some fear really is unreasonable.

 

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