Heights -- but only if I have nothing to hold onto. I have no difficulty looking over the wall of an overlook or balcony, or out the window of an airplane. But I was once literally paralyzed with fright on trying to go up a railingless staircase in a church tower, and once, on crossing a bridge on a pedestrian walkway that had only a grating for a floor, I couldn't move without holding onto the railing, so that my hand was filthy by the time we got across. It has gotten gradually worse with age: I visited San Francisco in 1972, and went up the summits of Twin Peaks (no railings, and somewhat exposed) and down again with no anxiety. 25 years later I had to have a friend hold my hand to go down.

--- Joe Fineman    joe_f@verizon.net

||: Parent & child is host & guest plus warden & prisoner. :||