Fears

Grant County Journal
October 11, 2010
By Janet Warren
Journal Columnist
My niece, Jill, is petrified of birds. Once she was sitting at an outdoor café table and some birds began pecking at crumbs around her feet. Her reaction must have been memorable because a psychologist slipped his card on the table and said, “I can help you with that.” Jill is no silly, empty-headed girl. She is a highly-skilled ICU nurse. She put herself through a bachelor’s degree and then nursing school while working part-time at her own business. She also once called her father to drive from his house in Sparks to her apartment in Reno to remove a bird that had taken up residence on her doorstep. She would have slept in her car all night if my brother, Dave, hadn’t made the 30-minute trip. He breathed a sigh of relief when Jill married Brian in July—her Prince Charming and Protector from Birds.
Admit it—something makes your palms sweat and your heart beat faster. People are afraid of--and I’m not making these up—zombies, finding bugs in berry yogurt, belly buttons, mermaids, windmills, and the concept of time travel. The list is long, and my fears seem tame in comparison. I’m startled easily by someone coming up behind me. Forgetting things makes me uncomfortable because Alzheimer’s runs in both sides of my family. Thank goodness I have a panic button on my key ring so I can find my car in Wal-Mart’s parking lot. I have other fears, but for now I’ll focus on my newest one—trains.
I made some discoveries while I was looking for a place to live in Ephrata. Mike was still working for the Washington State Patrol, so I shared things with him in the evenings when I came home from my house hunting. “Did you know trains run right through the middle of town, Mike?” He did. “Did you know your office is right across the street and the building shakes every time a train goes by?” He did. I chose a house as far away from the trains as we could get without being outside the city limits (a requirement for his job). The train noise startled me.
My friends, Alan and Connie Balciar recently built a house as close to the tracks as one can legally get. Alan said the train bothered him for only two nights after they moved in. Connie is a light sleeper, so she wears earplugs. Their house is well-built, however, and it doesn’t shake. Their daughters, Johanna and Natanya, had some misgivings in living so close to the train tracks, but they have adjusted well and the family has no regrets about building where they did. “In fact,” Connie said, “our neighbors have a little boy who loves the trains. He thinks this is the best place in town to live.” Natanya told me her family stands at the window sometimes and counts cars. “The shortest train had 3 cars and 3 locomotives,” she said, “and the longest was 186 cars with 10 locomotives.”
Johanna is a visual person and enjoys the graffiti on the cars. “Some of it is really pretty—it’s done in neon colors.” At night Johanna and Natanya can get people on Amtrak to wave at them. “It’s a little nostalgic for me,” said Alan. “We used to live in Quincy, and my parents rode Amtrak when they visited. We came to Ephrata to pick them up at the station.” I admire people like the Balciars who can turn something I consider unpleasant into a positive experience.
A few weeks after moving to Ephrata, I was driving home from Wal-Mart. I don’t consider myself irresponsible. I don’t text or even talk on my phone while driving, but I can get distracted by the conversations I have with myself, which obviously is something else I should be afraid of. Suddenly I realize I am driving under one of the arms at the railroad crossing as it is descending on me. The red lights are flashing, the bells are dinging and I am stuck in the middle with a train coming. I panicked. I sat there, as my car shook, scenes from my life passing before my eyes. I also had the alarming thought that someone was going to recognize me and tell the police chief. So after the arms came up, I did the only thing I could think of, which was drive to the police station and turn myself in. No one took me to the Grant County Hotel in handcuffs. However, Loretta, Mike’s administrative assistant, forced me to sit down until I stopped shaking and my face color was restored. Later I returned to the scene of the crime, as we criminals frequently do, and realized I should have at least backed up because I was inches from the train hitting the front of my car. Now my heart beats faster and my palms sweat when I approach a train crossing.
I am slowly getting over my panic, but my experience did leave me with an awesome respect for the power of trains. Now I am very vigilant when crossing the tracks, even if there is no train in sight. My distraction could have had tragic results for me and for my family. It’s always a good thing when we do something stupid and are given the opportunity to learn from it. Perhaps some fears are healthy.


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Janet can be reached at justsayinephrata@yahoo.com.