27- FEARS And PHOBIAS, OH My! I....

My bro, older by five, once got stuck in a handmade small play barn with double sliding bank barn doors that was constructed by our father. It was large enough for a 10-year-old.
The only problem? He couldn't get back out, stuck.
Yes, he would later panic in an elevator or a car with the windows rolled up.
He had forgotten about the barn, but the irrational fear of being enclosed remained.
Once, while spending the summer at my maternal grandmother's farm way out in the country in Rockingham County (Shenandoah Valley), a local neighbor boy, who lived over the hill on a neighboring farm, stopped by my grandparent's old Cline farmhouse and invited me to go swimming in a stream by a nearby meadow. As we waded in water about a foot deep, Louis suddenly fell down and began to thrash wildly about, literally acting like he was drowning before my frightened eyes. My fright vanished long enough to pull him out of the water to the grassy bank and safety. At 12, I didn't know what had happened but had the sense to react. College studies opened so much knowledge 6 years later.
But Ron Rascal, nickname given me in college by a special girlfriend, continues to be in absolute fear of thunderstorms with lightning, since a very young age.
Once, in high school, a few of my trout fishing chums and I took off one summer to camp in the North River Gorge of Augusta County (Valley). We liked to fish with natural bait, you know.
A huge thunderstorm blew our way later that afternoon, with skies darkening and lightning crashing up and down the Gorge. We made it to a hillside cabin and waited out the storm on an open porch. I could see and HEAR splitting flashes of electricity popping in the Gorge and mountain stream all around us, with me terrified every moment. "Please go away!" I kept thinking in my mind, "Please go away!"
After what seemed like hours, the storm did move on, with the mountain stream down in the Gorge raging. And, I will never forget, the sun came back out, with blue skies and, and a rainbow over the Gorge in front of us. Still not sure it was a phobia or not.
Wanna share a story or three?....squire