Childhood Fears

My parents may be the most devious, conniving, manipulative parents that ever graced God’s green Earth. Perhaps that is a little too harsh an opening statement, but if you only knew what they have put me through. If there were some way for me to recount the “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,” all of which they set loose upon my young mind. If only there was a way . . .

Yes, I do suppose there is a way to share my sordid tale, for the medium before me lends itself to such recounts.

Imagine a young Mike enjoying the early morning glow given off by Sesame Street. The colors, the characters, it is truly bliss for one such youth. The hours would pass, for back in my day Sesame Street seemed to broadcast unending mirth. One episode would end and another would quickly follow.

Yet for me, the gentle tranquility of Big Bird’s back yard was broken for that short time between shows. For in my mind, my parents had planted a seed of unrest. There was this show that would follow the last Sesame Street episode of the day; it was a bad show. It was not the kind of show a little boy wanted to watch. It was bad. I had been told as much and I believed it whole heartedly!

Sesame Street would end and the giant, floppy dog would trod off down the street. But before the last credit rolled across the screen, my joy had been replaced by a state of anticipatory fear. What was coming on next? Was it another Sesame Street? Or was it that horrible show that I wasn’t allowed to watch? I never knew, I couldn’t even tell time. I would run out of the room and hide. With my fingers dug deeply into my ears, I would cautiously peer around the corner, trying to shield my self of the verbal onslaught I so feared. I didn’t know the show, but I definitely knew how it started. The show’s vile cast would scream, a scream filled with hatred and terror, “Hey you Guyysss!”

It was less than three years ago that I finally learned the name of that dreaded show, ‘The Electric Company.’ The opening caught me by surprise and I had to watch. What was this show that had once filled my mind with such wretched abhorrence? To my surprise (as if I should have expected something different from PBS), the show was fairly entertaining and educational.

Which brings me back to my scheming parents. Not too long ago, I broached the subject in their presence. I was taken aback by my mother’s response. “Oh, that was how we got you away from the TV for nap time.”

Nap Time?!? Was she kidding me? The horrible, disreputable, lying, torturing, . . . , of all the no good, filthy, . . . . . . rather inventive and ingenious thing a parent could do to their child.

Looking back through the lens of someone who now has their own child to pry away from life’s excitement for a much needed nap, the permanent mental scarring I have to endure was probably a reasonable trade-off for my parents. Plus, I can now hope that I am old enough and intelligent enough to have moved beyond such silly fears. If I lacked the required sophistication and mental capacity, how then would you explain my genius plan to make chocolate chip cookie dough, roll it into balls and freeze them for later baking and consumption? I mean, someone who is intelligent enough to have ‘cookies on demand’ (TM, Patent Pending, et. al.) has to be mature enough to watch a children’s show without fear, right?

Saturday morning, my convictions were put to the test. For the first time in over 25 years, I caught the beginning of “The Electric Company” while already knowing it was the show I once feared. While I didn’t run crying out of the room, a tiny angst returned to haunt my mind. When was it coming? I tried to act uninterested, diverting my attention to the computer instead. But I couldn’t keep away. I found myself nervously glancing over at the television, wondering when that once terrible shout would come. There was a girl who had lost a contest. A guy was being hypnotized. Now he thought he was a dog. This was kind of funny. He was barking and scratching at his ear. I laughed to myself and relaxed. Perhaps they didn’t use that opening anymore. The dog-man responded to a question, “I don’t know why I’m acting like this. I remember a watch . . . and a man . . . and . . . it was that girl’s uncle. He must have hypnotized me . . .” He tipped his head back as if though his canine urges were prompting him to howl at the moon. “HEY YOU GUYYSSS!”

I honestly don’t remember anything after that moment. I thought I had taken it rather well, but thinking back, I’m pretty sure the TV was off a few seconds later.

I find it strange that something so minor, from so long ago, can still evoke emotion. I’m not saying that I was facing the same juvenile fears, but there was definitely an edge there, an underlying tension that taunted my mind. Was it really as bad as I remember? My mind was steeling itself against what I knew was coming, all the while trying to figure out how it would react to something it once feared, but now knew to be benign. That was the true edge, the knowledge that something that had once evoked powerful reactions was coming, but being unsure how a more reasoned mind would react.

That should suffice for this week’s story time. However, there are a few administrative loose ends that must be tied up. Nobody was able to earn the full bonus points from last week’s question, though two people did request and receive a couple points because they claimed they knew ‘the person in question’ before the final line.

“Is that all the points a dog can give? No. What time is it? Bonus points!!”

This week, there are two opportunities to earn yourself some bonus points. First, you can place the quote from the a few lines up. What show is it from? The second query is a little more sophisticated than last bit of early morning PBS trivia. Five bonus points to the first person to tell the source of the ‘thousand natural shocks’ quote from paragraph one.

Oh, and as for my mom and dad? Unnecessarily torturing, scaring and scarring their child aside, they did a pretty good job raising me! Thanks.