| Biographical Non-Fiction posted September 28, 2021 |
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As I child I saw the world as a scary place.
Facing My Childhood Fears
by BethShelby
My story starts December 7, 1941. I was a four-year-old, only child of Southern parents. Up to that point, I had felt very secure in my environment, where I was the center of my parent’s attention. I had no reason to doubt that everyone adored me and wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me.
Sunday was the only day my dad had time off from his job of managing a grocery store. We had taken our weekly trip in our '38 Ford sedan to the country to visit my aunt and uncle. I don’t remember the details of the trip, but it was late in the afternoon when we arrived back home.
We hadn’t had a radio very long, and it was something which was especially dear to my mother. Living in a small town, the only time we got good reception, without a lot of static, was at night. The first thing she did when entering the house was to turn the radio on.
At that time, the commentator on the nightly news was a man named Gabriel Heatter. He was a New Yorker, and he had a voice that would convince almost anyone of a world on the edge of tumbling into an abyss. Being used to laid-back Southern drawls, just the sound of his voice made me want to run and hide. I hadn’t anticipated my mother’s reaction to what he was saying. Pearl Harbor had just been bombed. Thousands were dead, and the U.S. was on the brink of joining the forces already embroiled in a world war.
My mom tended to overreact to everything, so seeing the sudden fear written on her face and hearing the tremor in her voice made my young blood run cold. In the days that followed, every newscast had her hugging the radio, which was bringing more bad news into my world.
I was far safer than I realized. If I had been a child in Europe, where the war had been on their doorsteps for some time, I would have had a reason to fear. So many children have seen the horrors of war with their own eyes. I think of children in Afghanistan, as their parents try to flee the country, and children of Haitian refugees on our border, many of whom have been separated from their parents and are at the mercy of strangers.
Nevertheless, this was my world, and I was truly afraid for the first time in life. I had nightmares. People around me began to talk about Hitler and the horrible things that were happening in Germany. I’m sure they thought a four-year-old wasn’t paying attention. From Bible stories, I’d learned a bit about a fallen angel called Satan. In my dreams, Satan and Hitler merged into a mega-monster who tried to torture me and planned to kill me.
Another thing that I found to be unsettling was my daddy was subject to being drafted. Mom told me my daddy might have to go fight in the war. Since Daddy worked and brought home the groceries, I assumed we might not have food to eat if Daddy went away. Plenty of kids did have their fathers drafted, and they survived. I would have, as well, but I didn’t know that.
I became more sensitive to the stories Mom read to me. The fairy tales designed for kids had scary parts, like the witch wanting to eat Hansel and Gretel, a giant wanting to eat Jack, and Jack killing him instead. Even the three little pigs were in danger; so was Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White. Whoever wrote these tales was obsessed with death.
Mom took me to the theater to see Bambi. First we watched newsreels with the horrors of the war. The Disney movie had scary fires, men with guns tying to shoot the deer, and Bambi’s mother dying. I couldn’t handle it. Today kids may be desensitized by the television, or maybe, they still suffer in silence as I did.
Life was not all roses on the farm for a sensitive child. I watched chickens snatched up by their necks and beheaded, and heard the squeals of hogs as they, too, were slaughtered. It wasn't a picnic living with the smell of freshly killed meat as it was ground into sausages. My stomach rebelled when anyone tried to get me to eat meat. I began to believe there was something seriously wrong with me. I'm still not a meat eater.
Thankfully, I didn't remain afraid of my shadow for many years. In a way, learning to read was my salvation. By the time I was eight, I started to realize none of the horrible things I’d imagined had actually happened in my world. Other things I feared had happened, and I’d survived them. They weren’t nearly as terrible as I’d imagined. The noises that I feared, like firecrackers, BB guns and real guns, where grownups did target practice using tin cans, were no longer scary. I even got brave enough to shoot a pistol myself.
Flying insects like wasps and bees had stung me. It hurt, but it was no big deal. I’d learned to be still and not fight, and they wouldn’t bother me.
In school, I'd been around kids I didn’t know, but I learned to make friends. I’d faced stage fright, but speaking in public, or playing the piano before an audience, wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. I’d survived standing in line to be vaccinated. The needle was scary, but not so bad if you didn’t look.
By that time, I was reading every book I could get my hands on, and it was the brave characters I admired. I decided I never wanted to be afraid again. In my mind, I began to imagine every horrible thing I could think of, and I decided if it happened, I would be brave enough to handle it. I had to force myself to face my fears.
I was afraid of heights, so I pushed myself to climb trees and ladders and to look down from high places. I was afraid of death, so I forced myself to go to funerals with my parents and touch the cold, waxy hand of dead person.
The grownups around me feared storms. I had also been afraid of storms and lightening, but by the time I was ten, I wasn’t afraid of very many things, including storms. I’d convinced myself it would be neat to have a tornado pick me up and give me ride in the sky.
I got my wish. My home was completely destroyed by a tornado, and my mother and I were sucked into the funnel cloud and carried a long way from the bedroom that no longer existed. It happened so fast, I had no time to be afraid. Amazingly, we were not hurt, and we landed without as much as a bruise. Many in the same storm were not so fortunate. Eighteen people died and dozens survived with severe injuries.
Did that make me afraid? It did. For a year afterward, I was terrified of storms. The year passed, and so did my fear. Today, I know that storms, as well as many other things, are dangerous and should be respected to the point we need to exercise caution, but not fear.
My maternal grandmother was the one person in my life that seemed to have no fear. As a young girl, she had had a near death experience. She'd been told she had to go back, because it wasn't her time. She believed no one would die until their time came, so for her, life was in the hand of God and there was nothing she could do about it. Fear was not a part of the equation.
As I child, I decided to take my grandmother's theory to heart, and to live like there was nothing to fear. My life went a lot smoother from that point on. Today, I won’t go that far. I do believe people are able to extend their lives by eating healthy, having an upbeat attitude, and exercising some degree of caution in the ways in which they react to the world around them. Still, I find very little to fear.
It has been many years since I felt a rush of adrenaline when some sudden danger appears. I’m not saying I’m fearless. I just don’t go looking for things to freak out about. Sometimes that means staying off of Facebook or Twitter. Whatever it takes; trust God and live boldly.
Childhood Memories contest entry
My story starts December 7, 1941. I was a four-year-old, only child of Southern parents. Up to that point, I had felt very secure in my environment, where I was the center of my parent’s attention. I had no reason to doubt that everyone adored me and wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me.
Sunday was the only day my dad had time off from his job of managing a grocery store. We had taken our weekly trip in our '38 Ford sedan to the country to visit my aunt and uncle. I don’t remember the details of the trip, but it was late in the afternoon when we arrived back home.
We hadn’t had a radio very long, and it was something which was especially dear to my mother. Living in a small town, the only time we got good reception, without a lot of static, was at night. The first thing she did when entering the house was to turn the radio on.
At that time, the commentator on the nightly news was a man named Gabriel Heatter. He was a New Yorker, and he had a voice that would convince almost anyone of a world on the edge of tumbling into an abyss. Being used to laid-back Southern drawls, just the sound of his voice made me want to run and hide. I hadn’t anticipated my mother’s reaction to what he was saying. Pearl Harbor had just been bombed. Thousands were dead, and the U.S. was on the brink of joining the forces already embroiled in a world war.
My mom tended to overreact to everything, so seeing the sudden fear written on her face and hearing the tremor in her voice made my young blood run cold. In the days that followed, every newscast had her hugging the radio, which was bringing more bad news into my world.
I was far safer than I realized. If I had been a child in Europe, where the war had been on their doorsteps for some time, I would have had a reason to fear. So many children have seen the horrors of war with their own eyes. I think of children in Afghanistan, as their parents try to flee the country, and children of Haitian refugees on our border, many of whom have been separated from their parents and are at the mercy of strangers.
Nevertheless, this was my world, and I was truly afraid for the first time in life. I had nightmares. People around me began to talk about Hitler and the horrible things that were happening in Germany. I’m sure they thought a four-year-old wasn’t paying attention. From Bible stories, I’d learned a bit about a fallen angel called Satan. In my dreams, Satan and Hitler merged into a mega-monster who tried to torture me and planned to kill me.
Another thing that I found to be unsettling was my daddy was subject to being drafted. Mom told me my daddy might have to go fight in the war. Since Daddy worked and brought home the groceries, I assumed we might not have food to eat if Daddy went away. Plenty of kids did have their fathers drafted, and they survived. I would have, as well, but I didn’t know that.
I became more sensitive to the stories Mom read to me. The fairy tales designed for kids had scary parts, like the witch wanting to eat Hansel and Gretel, a giant wanting to eat Jack, and Jack killing him instead. Even the three little pigs were in danger; so was Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White. Whoever wrote these tales was obsessed with death.
Mom took me to the theater to see Bambi. First we watched newsreels with the horrors of the war. The Disney movie had scary fires, men with guns tying to shoot the deer, and Bambi’s mother dying. I couldn’t handle it. Today kids may be desensitized by the television, or maybe, they still suffer in silence as I did.
Life was not all roses on the farm for a sensitive child. I watched chickens snatched up by their necks and beheaded, and heard the squeals of hogs as they, too, were slaughtered. It wasn't a picnic living with the smell of freshly killed meat as it was ground into sausages. My stomach rebelled when anyone tried to get me to eat meat. I began to believe there was something seriously wrong with me. I'm still not a meat eater.
Thankfully, I didn't remain afraid of my shadow for many years. In a way, learning to read was my salvation. By the time I was eight, I started to realize none of the horrible things I’d imagined had actually happened in my world. Other things I feared had happened, and I’d survived them. They weren’t nearly as terrible as I’d imagined. The noises that I feared, like firecrackers, BB guns and real guns, where grownups did target practice using tin cans, were no longer scary. I even got brave enough to shoot a pistol myself.
Flying insects like wasps and bees had stung me. It hurt, but it was no big deal. I’d learned to be still and not fight, and they wouldn’t bother me.
In school, I'd been around kids I didn’t know, but I learned to make friends. I’d faced stage fright, but speaking in public, or playing the piano before an audience, wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. I’d survived standing in line to be vaccinated. The needle was scary, but not so bad if you didn’t look.
By that time, I was reading every book I could get my hands on, and it was the brave characters I admired. I decided I never wanted to be afraid again. In my mind, I began to imagine every horrible thing I could think of, and I decided if it happened, I would be brave enough to handle it. I had to force myself to face my fears.
I was afraid of heights, so I pushed myself to climb trees and ladders and to look down from high places. I was afraid of death, so I forced myself to go to funerals with my parents and touch the cold, waxy hand of dead person.
The grownups around me feared storms. I had also been afraid of storms and lightening, but by the time I was ten, I wasn’t afraid of very many things, including storms. I’d convinced myself it would be neat to have a tornado pick me up and give me ride in the sky.
I got my wish. My home was completely destroyed by a tornado, and my mother and I were sucked into the funnel cloud and carried a long way from the bedroom that no longer existed. It happened so fast, I had no time to be afraid. Amazingly, we were not hurt, and we landed without as much as a bruise. Many in the same storm were not so fortunate. Eighteen people died and dozens survived with severe injuries.
Did that make me afraid? It did. For a year afterward, I was terrified of storms. The year passed, and so did my fear. Today, I know that storms, as well as many other things, are dangerous and should be respected to the point we need to exercise caution, but not fear.
My maternal grandmother was the one person in my life that seemed to have no fear. As a young girl, she had had a near death experience. She'd been told she had to go back, because it wasn't her time. She believed no one would die until their time came, so for her, life was in the hand of God and there was nothing she could do about it. Fear was not a part of the equation.
As I child, I decided to take my grandmother's theory to heart, and to live like there was nothing to fear. My life went a lot smoother from that point on. Today, I won’t go that far. I do believe people are able to extend their lives by eating healthy, having an upbeat attitude, and exercising some degree of caution in the ways in which they react to the world around them. Still, I find very little to fear.
It has been many years since I felt a rush of adrenaline when some sudden danger appears. I’m not saying I’m fearless. I just don’t go looking for things to freak out about. Sometimes that means staying off of Facebook or Twitter. Whatever it takes; trust God and live boldly.
Sunday was the only day my dad had time off from his job of managing a grocery store. We had taken our weekly trip in our '38 Ford sedan to the country to visit my aunt and uncle. I don’t remember the details of the trip, but it was late in the afternoon when we arrived back home.
We hadn’t had a radio very long, and it was something which was especially dear to my mother. Living in a small town, the only time we got good reception, without a lot of static, was at night. The first thing she did when entering the house was to turn the radio on.
At that time, the commentator on the nightly news was a man named Gabriel Heatter. He was a New Yorker, and he had a voice that would convince almost anyone of a world on the edge of tumbling into an abyss. Being used to laid-back Southern drawls, just the sound of his voice made me want to run and hide. I hadn’t anticipated my mother’s reaction to what he was saying. Pearl Harbor had just been bombed. Thousands were dead, and the U.S. was on the brink of joining the forces already embroiled in a world war.
My mom tended to overreact to everything, so seeing the sudden fear written on her face and hearing the tremor in her voice made my young blood run cold. In the days that followed, every newscast had her hugging the radio, which was bringing more bad news into my world.
I was far safer than I realized. If I had been a child in Europe, where the war had been on their doorsteps for some time, I would have had a reason to fear. So many children have seen the horrors of war with their own eyes. I think of children in Afghanistan, as their parents try to flee the country, and children of Haitian refugees on our border, many of whom have been separated from their parents and are at the mercy of strangers.
Nevertheless, this was my world, and I was truly afraid for the first time in life. I had nightmares. People around me began to talk about Hitler and the horrible things that were happening in Germany. I’m sure they thought a four-year-old wasn’t paying attention. From Bible stories, I’d learned a bit about a fallen angel called Satan. In my dreams, Satan and Hitler merged into a mega-monster who tried to torture me and planned to kill me.
Another thing that I found to be unsettling was my daddy was subject to being drafted. Mom told me my daddy might have to go fight in the war. Since Daddy worked and brought home the groceries, I assumed we might not have food to eat if Daddy went away. Plenty of kids did have their fathers drafted, and they survived. I would have, as well, but I didn’t know that.
I became more sensitive to the stories Mom read to me. The fairy tales designed for kids had scary parts, like the witch wanting to eat Hansel and Gretel, a giant wanting to eat Jack, and Jack killing him instead. Even the three little pigs were in danger; so was Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White. Whoever wrote these tales was obsessed with death.
Mom took me to the theater to see Bambi. First we watched newsreels with the horrors of the war. The Disney movie had scary fires, men with guns tying to shoot the deer, and Bambi’s mother dying. I couldn’t handle it. Today kids may be desensitized by the television, or maybe, they still suffer in silence as I did.
Life was not all roses on the farm for a sensitive child. I watched chickens snatched up by their necks and beheaded, and heard the squeals of hogs as they, too, were slaughtered. It wasn't a picnic living with the smell of freshly killed meat as it was ground into sausages. My stomach rebelled when anyone tried to get me to eat meat. I began to believe there was something seriously wrong with me. I'm still not a meat eater.
Thankfully, I didn't remain afraid of my shadow for many years. In a way, learning to read was my salvation. By the time I was eight, I started to realize none of the horrible things I’d imagined had actually happened in my world. Other things I feared had happened, and I’d survived them. They weren’t nearly as terrible as I’d imagined. The noises that I feared, like firecrackers, BB guns and real guns, where grownups did target practice using tin cans, were no longer scary. I even got brave enough to shoot a pistol myself.
Flying insects like wasps and bees had stung me. It hurt, but it was no big deal. I’d learned to be still and not fight, and they wouldn’t bother me.
In school, I'd been around kids I didn’t know, but I learned to make friends. I’d faced stage fright, but speaking in public, or playing the piano before an audience, wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. I’d survived standing in line to be vaccinated. The needle was scary, but not so bad if you didn’t look.
By that time, I was reading every book I could get my hands on, and it was the brave characters I admired. I decided I never wanted to be afraid again. In my mind, I began to imagine every horrible thing I could think of, and I decided if it happened, I would be brave enough to handle it. I had to force myself to face my fears.
I was afraid of heights, so I pushed myself to climb trees and ladders and to look down from high places. I was afraid of death, so I forced myself to go to funerals with my parents and touch the cold, waxy hand of dead person.
The grownups around me feared storms. I had also been afraid of storms and lightening, but by the time I was ten, I wasn’t afraid of very many things, including storms. I’d convinced myself it would be neat to have a tornado pick me up and give me ride in the sky.
I got my wish. My home was completely destroyed by a tornado, and my mother and I were sucked into the funnel cloud and carried a long way from the bedroom that no longer existed. It happened so fast, I had no time to be afraid. Amazingly, we were not hurt, and we landed without as much as a bruise. Many in the same storm were not so fortunate. Eighteen people died and dozens survived with severe injuries.
Did that make me afraid? It did. For a year afterward, I was terrified of storms. The year passed, and so did my fear. Today, I know that storms, as well as many other things, are dangerous and should be respected to the point we need to exercise caution, but not fear.
My maternal grandmother was the one person in my life that seemed to have no fear. As a young girl, she had had a near death experience. She'd been told she had to go back, because it wasn't her time. She believed no one would die until their time came, so for her, life was in the hand of God and there was nothing she could do about it. Fear was not a part of the equation.
As I child, I decided to take my grandmother's theory to heart, and to live like there was nothing to fear. My life went a lot smoother from that point on. Today, I won’t go that far. I do believe people are able to extend their lives by eating healthy, having an upbeat attitude, and exercising some degree of caution in the ways in which they react to the world around them. Still, I find very little to fear.
It has been many years since I felt a rush of adrenaline when some sudden danger appears. I’m not saying I’m fearless. I just don’t go looking for things to freak out about. Sometimes that means staying off of Facebook or Twitter. Whatever it takes; trust God and live boldly.
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