Thanks for your insight into this image Cliff.
I sure enjoyed reading it while staring at this photograph
I did nearly five years ago.
Cliff
18-Oct-2009 03:32
Fear!
by Cliff Newman
A very great many times while working at the most dangerous job in the world for thirty years [graveyard shift in a convenience store], people would come in and ask, “Aren’t you afraid to be in here alone all night?”
Lets put fear in proper perspective… in 1956, Escondido [California] had about 4,000 residents, leaving The Lake Hodges Dam a rather desolate area.
One day that year my parents took me out to the dam, made me take off my shoes and socks and ordered me to walk out onto the spillway. They kept yelling, “Just a little further, just a little further!”
There were no handrails. The dam was over flowing. I could see the dark murky water churning up and rushing over the top of the spillway [and over my feet] making me feel like I was being washed away. I could feel my feet slipping on the moss-covered top of the spillway. On the other side of the dam I could see the hundred and twenty foot shear drop and the big rocks at the base. I was way out past where my parents could reach me but still they yelled, “Just a little further, just a little further!”
Turning around to face them, I knew beyond any doubt they wanted me dead. Pretty tough realization for a five year old boy.
Back at the store many years later I heard people come in and ask, “Aren’t you afraid to be in here alone all night?”
Fear… don’t make me laugh.
Sometimes I actually felt sorry for the armed robbers that ran into the store and faced me with their guns thinking they were in a rage. They truly had no idea what they unleashed when they came in and challenged me.
You see… that day on the dam, when I was five years old, was nothing. You didn’t think that was the first time my parents tried to get rid of me… did you?
