Heights

Being scared of heights has always made theme parks not as much fun for me as for other people. A ride on a ferris wheel or roller coaster just gives me no thrills...not even the 'oh I'm so scared this is fun' thrill.

Jim however loved them. He was always looking for the highest place to be and the wildest ride to get on. This is one area where we could never find a happy medium. Well, the happy medium was he find someone to go on the ride with him and I cheer them from the ground.

I remember going to some park where they had a skilift sort of ride. You get in the ski lift chair thing and are hanging of a wire and it circles the park. I sat on it, feeling no ground beneath me, with my fingers clenched in Jim's and my teeth clenched together and my eyes screwed shut. Jim was a good egg though, he talked to me so I wouldn't feel alone, he enjoyed himself, and we never went on the ride again.

He wanted me to go on the ferris wheel with my friend Melissa and her two young sons. The group of them couldn't get over how scared I was and so I just kept my eyes closed, tried to ignore the swaying and leaned against Jim.

Maybe what I should define here is, its not the height that bothers me, so much as the feeling of nothing beneath me. Nothing solid. All this was brought back into my memory circuits when my friends 4 year old daughter told me how she went on the ferris wheel and could see all over the place.

It just reminded me of the years gone by.