{"id":322,"date":"2008-06-27T08:01:46","date_gmt":"2008-06-27T12:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.summerofjim.com\/2008\/06\/27\/she-told-me-not-to-be-afraid\/"},"modified":"2008-06-27T08:01:46","modified_gmt":"2008-06-27T12:01:46","slug":"she-told-me-not-to-be-afraid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=322","title":{"rendered":"She Told Me Not To Be Afraid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mom told me, \u201cThey’re playing nine pins<\/em>, don’t be afraid.\u201d <\/p>\n

It was at night.\u00a0I was not sure who the \u201cthey\u201d were. I was too young to know of Greek and Roman Gods, to imagine Mars and Neptune engaged in some sort of sporting diversion.\u00a0 I may have been downstairs in the den when the sounds became unmistakable.\u00a0\u00a0At first, a\u00a0low rumble.\u00a0 The tree limbs\u00a0in the next-door yard started to sway, the leaves twisted, their lighter underbellies reflected in the street light.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Don’t be afraid… <\/em>It sounded like whatever they <\/em>were doing… they were doing it right above our house.\u00a0 They<\/em>?\u00a0 Possibly other celestial Deities… maybe an angel or two?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Playing nine pins.\u00a0 <\/em>I have no idea where Mom came up with that… I can’t see Mommie Soph telling her\u00a0that when she<\/em> was a young girl.<\/p>\n

No, I suspect this was a story of her creation. Or maybe it was a common story of the time, like the stork bringing babies.\u00a0\u00a0Or possibly she\u00a0picked up the idea from reading Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle. <\/em>That would explain her use of nine pins, <\/em>instead of bowling.\u00a0 Little men, somewhat mischievous and having a good ol’ time rolling a ball down a\u00a0path toward\u00a0standing nine pins.\u00a0 And certainly the sounds of rolling thunder matched the image.\u00a0 A ball rolling its way toward the pins, its sound building to a crescendo before the crash of the pin strike… or <\/em>in the case of a storm… the crack of thunder.<\/p>\n

I don’t recall how Mom explained the lightening… but it certainly went hand in hand with the effect of the ball knocking down\u00a0all those pins.\u00a0 After all, we’re talking about the expanse of the heavens, and not some dumb duck pin lane on Amity Rd. \u00a0I can see the electrifying light flash in the night sky…\u00a0I have moved to the\u00a0staircase landing between the first and second floors, looking out of the window, into our yard.\u00a0 The garage, the grass, trees… everything in a monochromatic steely grey. No, this is really big.\u00a0 To pull off the sound and light, they <\/em>have to be real big.<\/p>\n

They’re playing nine pins, don’t be afraid.<\/em> There was something in the way that she said it… a reassurance in her voice;\u00a0very calming but with a dollop of whimsy. \u201cSure it’s noisy; but those men are having fun up there!\u201d Don’t be afraid.<\/em> Well, it did sound like\u00a0they <\/em>were having fun!\u00a0 And I wasn’t afraid.<\/p>\n

In the movie Bell<\/em>, Book and Candle<\/em>, Kim Novak plays a witch (Gillian Holyroyd) and in order to get even with a college classmate played by Janice Rule (Merle Kitteridge), she conjured up thunderstorms to terrify her. Which indeed, had its desired effect. Sure, some people are terrified of thunderstorms.<\/p>\n

Not me. In fact, I rather fancy them. The noisier, the better. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mom told me, \u201cThey’re playing nine pins, don’t be afraid.\u201d It was at night.\u00a0I was not sure who the \u201cthey\u201d were. I was too young to know of Greek and Roman Gods, to imagine Mars and Neptune engaged in some … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childhood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}