Blue Ridge Country March/April 2024 - 8

Childhood Fears
Turns out they lessen, but re-emerge in adult versions.
BY MOLLY DUGGER BRENNAN I ILLUSTRATION BY LEAH COFFMAN
I
was recently asked what I was afraid of. It was in
a group of friends and we were all exposing what
would make our skin crawl. Shout out to the spiders
in the world because spiders were the group's
number-one thing that makes them leave a room. Sorry,
snakes, you were clearly second place in this competition.
Maybe next time. Our phobia show-and-tell session
made me think. What was I afraid of as a child
versus what scares me as an adult. How different would
those two lists be?
Quicksand: Oh, this was a constant fear as a child. I
spent a lot of time with my Grandma Sallie and our visits
centered around Westerns. If a show included a man
riding a horse, Grandma was sold. The Westerns from
her era, for some reason, often depicted people being
sucked under the surface of quicksand and drowning in
what looked like a huge vat of oatmeal cleverly hidden
in the desert.
Naturally, I concluded that any walk outside could
potentially kill me. I would test step on surfaces to make
sure it wasn't really quicksand covered with leaves to
blend into the Virginia woodland. You could have been
on crutches and kept up with me since I thought a booby
trap was waiting every six feet or so. I'd sneak up on it
before I toe-tested that suspicious puddle. Can't be too
careful with quicksand. I was also suspicious of oatmeal,
but if it could fit in a bowl it couldn't kill me so we had a
begrudging relationship.
8 BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
Falling off a cliff: This too is courtesy of Grandma's
Westerns, because along with quicksand a lot of people
seemed to go over the edge of a cliff. Maybe I could
have skipped this fear except that my Grandma lived at
Bremo Bluff, along Virginia's James River, and that bluff
to my five-year-old eyes looked like a massive section of
the Grand Canyon. My very own edge of oblivion.
Funny thing though, one danger that the mountains
of Virginia and a classic Western have in common is
rattlesnakes. My family didn't say boo about snakes and
fear and there was a real connection. I guess my family
viewed a snake that warns you is playing fairly and if you
get bit, maybe that's on you.
Swimming too soon: This fear was carved in stone for
me. If you went swimming less than 30 full minutes after
putting anything in your mouth, you would die. The
adults told us that when you ate something, all your
blood rushed to your stomach to process it therefore
it wouldn't be available to your muscles for swimming
and you'd sink like a rock to the bottom of the pond
and drown. That was my understanding of the message.
What a way to die. Unable to move, underwater,
all because you couldn't resist a couple of Twinkies and
then rest for 30 minutes. Imagine what they'd say at
your funeral.
Facial paralysis: Remember the phrase, " Keep making
that face and it'll freeze that way. " I heard it weekly.
What would it take to make a certain expression stick for
http://www.BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
Blue Ridge Country March/April 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country March/April 2024
