I have never handled heights real well. I get shaky on the third rung of a ladder. And it’s not because I’m an old man. I was the same way when I was thirty.
I can guess at two reasons why this fear is instilled in me.
The first reason is simple. My mother was the same way and, just maybe, I inherited the affliction.
Daddy Had No Fear of Heights
Reason two is a bit more complicated. When I was five, maybe six, at any rate during the War, my mother and I visited my father in Baltimore and we went to an amusement park. There was a “kiddie section” at the park and there was a little roller coaster. I saw the thing and I wanted to ride it. The problem was that Daddy didn’t see the kiddie roller coaster. Anyway, the conversation went something like this:
“Take me on the roller coaster, Daddy.”
“Are you sure, son?”
“Yes. Please.”
“Are you sure, son?”
“Yes. Please.”
Well, Daddy took me on the roller coaster. The trouble is, it wasn’t the one I had seen. If I remember correctly, the top before one of the dips was about 200 feet high. That’s pretty far up, especially when you are not yet three feet tall.
I reckon I did alright for a couple of minutes. But things went a bit awry at 200 feet. Later, years later, Daddy told me what happened. Daddy was either fifty or fifty-one and I almost gave him a heart attack. I started to jump out of the thing. He had to hold me tightly because I was struggling.
What I am trying to say is that the “jump out of the roller coaster” trick just may have been the cause of my life-long fear of heights. Beats me.
Now, none of what I have just told you has anything to do with the picture shown with this post.
The photograph is one of my father. If you didn’t notice that he probably didn’t have a fear of heights, then I suggest you take another look.
I don’t know where the photo was taken. Neither do I know when it was taken. My guess on that is circa 1915, when Daddy was 21.
If you’d like to listen to the audio version of “Fear of Heights” you can find it:
