Academy Of The Recent Past » Scary Stories http://academyoftherecentpast.com Interesting Stories About Our Past Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:37:22 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Growing Out Of Childhood Fears http://academyoftherecentpast.com/growing-out-of-childhood-fears/ http://academyoftherecentpast.com/growing-out-of-childhood-fears/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:22:59 +0000 admin http://academyoftherecentpast.com/?p=20 fearI was never a very adventurous kid as I was growing up.  I remember being terrified of my first day of school.  My mother and I went in to register a few weeks before hand, and I remember sitting in the principals office.  He asked my mother for my birth certificate, and I she didn’t have it with her.  He picked up the phone and started dialing.  I remember it vividly, as it was one of those old rotary dial phones, and he had some plastic thing attached to the end of his finger to help with the dialing.

I’m not sure who he was dialing, but I was convinced we were in big trouble.  I think I thought it was some bigger authority.  For weeks after, every time a police car drove by my house I was terrified.  I was only 5 years old.  Even one of my earliest memories of kindergartden was not very good.  I remember doing some assignment, and watching the teacher come around to check everyones work.  I knew I had made a mistake in the assignment, and was terrified that I would be in big trouble once she found out.

Things continue this way.  It’s a wonder I ever managed to survive growing up.  I remember taking swimming lessons, and being petrified to dive into the deep end of the pool.  Either off the diving board, or the side of the pool.  Not sure why, but I was.  I’ve never been much of a thrill seeker, and remember the first time I rented a pair of jet skis.  The guy renting the skis came out after a few minutes, to make sure my jet ski was ok.  Apparently I was going so slow he thought the machine was broken.  It wasn’t.  It was just me.

Somehow though I managed to survive childhood and grow up into a full fledged mostly normal adult.  Married with kids, and a job for a while.  Although my jobs started to become a little more unusual a few years ago.  I took a consulting job in the late nineties, where I travell non stop all over North America as a computer consultant.  None of my friends did anything like this.  Eventually, I quit a full time steady (boring) job at a bank to make a living on the internet.

And a few years prior to that, I bought a sailboat without ever having been on one before in my life.  I had never sailed one, or been on one that someone else sailed.  Well, except for a little dinghy that I puttered around a small lake with.  But, that didn’t stop me from buying a 30 foot hunter sailboat with more controls and lines than I had a clue as to what to do with.

I guess, I grew out of most of those childhood fears in one way or another.  I have since then dove in the pool many times, and even jumped off a 10 meter diving board.  No idea why.  However, I do still get a little nervous when talkin with my kids principal.

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