Being afraid is nothing like being afeared, a wonderful middle English word that we don't hear often these days.

Lots of people are entertained by tales of terror, and perhaps today's society is desensitized to horror tales as the movies have become increasingly more terrifying. The only scary movie I have ever seen was 'Rosemary's Baby," and folks tell me that is nothing compared to others that even have groupie followings. Just hearing about "Misery," "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Jaws" gives me nightmares. I don't know who Freddie Kruger or Hannibal are, and I don't want to meet them. I must have a hard time separating fantasy from reality.

As a child, our fears were encouraged by the tales we somehow heard. But my mother was the genius protector. She told us that fear is simply not knowing how to handle a situation, so she always had a solution. I was afraid that there was a bear behind the door to my bedroom where the light button was located. Mother told me that if I would ram my fist down the bear's throat, he could not clamp down his jaws and I would be safe. I never questioned what I was to do next, but my fear was relieved and to this day, I will ball up my fist when reaching behind a door in the dark.

I was afraid of walking across the linoleum flooring in my bedroom decorated with floral patterns that could turn into hands at night, grab your feet and pull you down into hell. Mother simply unrolled a length of butcher paper and put it over the linoleum, creating a safety path to the door.

Schools in the 1950s showed films that the state considered safety warnings, but all they did was scare me to death. One film showed a baby suffocated with a cleaner's plastic. When I cried to Mom about it, she simply asked me did I know anyone who even used a dry cleaner? But then she helped me write a letter to our congressman asking for a law to make manufacturers print warnings on the plastic. You see our results today.

I was shown films of children who died when hiding inside an abandoned refrigerator that did not open from the inside. What did Mom do? She promised that every time we saw an abandoned refrigerator, we would ensure that the door was removed. Then, you guessed, it. We wrote a letter to Amana, and soon there were latches on the insides of fridge doors.

One of our greatest fears was atomic warfare in the midst of the Red Scare and the Cold War. The films of the effects of atomic bombs included the defects people exposed to radiation suffered. Mother told me that research proved that the white lining of orange peels created a resistance to radiation, and I love eating entire orange peels to this day. Burning lips are a small price to pay for protection against an atomic bomb.

As we walked home from school each day, we passed a sales lot for bomb shelters. Even though common in tornado country, I had never seen one before except in "The Wizard of Oz." I prayed daily for one until Mother asked me would I really want to be the one emerging from a shelter to face the destruction. That did give me pause for thought, but I still was fearful of bombs, justifiably so. Mother set out to solve that fear. She helped organized evacuation plans from our local school. In drills, we were loaded into designated drivers' vehicles and taken 60 miles away to check in. That did help a lot. We had a plan.

Perhaps our greatest fear was polio. We were not allowed to swim in public pools, attend any crowded event such as movies and were constantly given Sulphur mixed with jelly to provide a defense. So, of course, my mother called her good friend Jonas Salk and asked him to discover a vaccine. And, he did. As we lined up in the school cafeteria to be given a sugar cube with a pink drop of magic liquid on it, I knew that once again my mother had eased my fears. In this case, I know now that her fear of polio was much worse than mine.

I realize she actually had many more fears than I did, but when I asked her who told her how to handle them, she said, "Why, your father does, of course." What a way to grow up — especially after we were allowed to go swim in the public wading pool!

As for my advice in this season of spooky tales, just take a look at this poster I have permission to share with you. As the old Cornish prayer book implores, "Good Lord, Deliver Us."