Thank heaven November is here

Every day during October, Turner Classic Movies featured scary films. I don't like scary films, or scary stories. I consider real life scary enough

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I've been scared all my life. I was the kid who was scared to ride on the merry-go-round without an armed guard, or at least a parent. The Saturday serials featured at my local movie house found me cowering under the seat until someone told me it was over. If I ever attended a movie that was a bit frightening I couldn't sleep and kept pestering mom and dad to explain that Dracula was not on the front lawn and Frankenstein was not planning to descend from the chimney. But how did they know?

And then there was the fear that Hitler would win World War II and come to Columbus OH to kill me. That one was not so far-fetched.

I was scared of everyone in my high school who was older than me, which was everyone, since my parents thought I was old enough to go to high school at the age of eleven. It wasn't until my third year of college that I was able to relax because some of the students were younger than me.

I get scared every time the mailman, Deliverer of Doom, brings me a letter from the IRS. Or my insurance carrier.