Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Thirty-Two

I once had a student who said aloud quite often, “I’m skeered!” If you could have known that child as I did, I’m sure you would have agreed that in reality he was scared of nothing.

I was having a conversation with my nephew the other day and the question of when we were the most scared in our lives arose.

I remember when I was a child I was afraid of the dark. My mother received a picture of Jesus for Christmas that had a light along the top of the metal frame. She would plug in that light for me, but it only seemed to add new shadows to the room that frightened me more. My fear of the dark caused me to do strange things, like sleepwalk. One night I awoke in the middle of the living room in the act of urinating on the floor!

I loved the nights when Aunt Lidia or Papaw Charlie Sampson visited, for I could sleep with them and feel secure. How I dreaded to see them leave, for I knew the night frights would be returning.

In my adult years I have become like Scrooge—Dickens said darkness was cheap and Scrooge liked it. I like darkness now. It is then I can see stars most clearly at their brightest. I like reading in the dark with only a single lamp burning. In winter, I like to wrap up in a warm “Snuggie” and blanket while sitting in my favorite chair to read a good book while a single lamp burns, occasionally watching the flames from my gas fireplace dance their mysterious patterns across the dim ceiling. I like walking around both the inside and outside of the house after dark, my only fear being sprayed by a surprised skunk (thankfully, this has never happened to me).

I do remember a few times being scared. My good friend Mark Martin got particular enjoyment at my expense on one such occasion. A group of us were once elected as representatives to the Tennessee Education Association Representative Assembly. As we were walking through downtown Nashville after dinner on our way to our hotel, I was on the side closest to the buildings. As we rounded a corner, a black gentleman and I nearly collided. Mr. Martin always laughed when he remembered my frightened yell. This I would call fright by surprise.

There were times I set myself up to be scared. I remember a time when my father was in the hospital dying of cancer. I found myself at my sister’s house reading Stephen King. I had read his books before, but never in quite this setting. I was sleeping on the couch in her den, with only the single lamp at my head to light the printed pages. She and her husband were in the other extreme end of the house—no one else was present. Just as I was reading a particularly frightening scene in Pet Sematary (King’s spelling), the clock struck twelve! I have read many Stephen King and other scary books since, but none have ever had quite the same impact.

On another occasion, I had crossed Maynardville Highway to visit with my landlord, Ann Thacker. One of her sons, Jack, and his family lived with her. Jack was just putting a scary movie into the VCR, the original version of The Evil Dead. Without going into a lot of gruesome details, the movie involved a girl in the woods who was raped by vines which came to life by means of a resurrected evil incantation. This caused her to turn into a horrible monster that in turn caused her friends to become grotesque monsters as well. The movie was terrifying enough to me, lots of blood and gore—even more frightening was having to walk home across the road to a house that was surrounded on three sides by a thick growth of kudzu. I still fear kudzu to this day and can’t bring myself to watch that movie again.

Another fear I have is heights. This fear has gotten worse over time. When I was young, I dreamed many times I was standing on the edge of a six story building (how I knew it was six stories is beyond me). I was always facing the roof, my back to the ground below. I would begin falling backwards and jerk my whole body as I awoke. I have been told that if I had hit bottom that I would have died.

Perhaps in some way that dream transferred to my fear of rollercoasters. When I was younger I rode them fearfully, never on the front and never in the back. I have even ridden a huge rollercoaster at King’s Island, but what swore me off them was the Blazing Fury at Dollywood. There is a reason for the warning sign that advises those with heart trouble against riding.

The Blazing Fury combined two of my worst fears—darkness and heights. The first time I rode the Blazing Fury I remember being jerked to one direction in the dark. The second time I was expecting to be jerked hard to the right, but this time it was to the left. The third and final time I rode the Blazing Fury I was plunged straight down into sheer blackness when I was expecting to be jerked one way or the other. The turns and drops in the Blazing Fury probably did not change, but fear seemed to cloud my memory. Nonetheless, I vowed since I had survived that third and final ride on the Blazing Fury that I would never ride another rollercoaster, and I haven’t.

I end with two bits of food for thought. Franklin D. Roosevelt told the American people that all they had to fear was fear itself. That seems good enough reason not to unnecessarily invoke things of which to be afraid. An old eighth grade reading book (A World of Experience, Bailey & Leavell, 1963, p. 364) contains an old Scottish invocation:

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-legged beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord deliver us!

And that, as Forrest Gump would say, is all I have to say about that.

I wish you a pleasant week free from fear. Next week I’ll share some fears of my mother and Aunt Duskie.