Timeline of Anxiety By Martha Wilson Rowe
The suggestion for these life stories came from a question my friend’s granddaughter asked of her: What events took place in your life that caused as much difficulty as the Coronavirus? Of the events described here, some did not cause as much difficulty as they did anxiety.
1941+: World War II. My childhood was relatively happy and carefree, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor had little, if any, impact on a little girl who had just turned five years old. It was what took place in the following years that caused me to be most frightened, the searchlights at Smith Reynolds Airport. They were extremely powerful, sweeping the night skies as they searched for any German aircraft. I was afraid of them and wanted to hide. 1948: The Polio Epidemic. The swimming pool at Reynolds Park was closed. The movie theatres were closed. I was not allowed to go to the playground or play with other children. Pictures of children in iron lungs shocked and terrified me.
1951: The Korean War. Airplanes flying overhead alarmed me. It was unreasonable to suspect that they were Korean planes coming to drop bombs on us, but it was my fear nevertheless. At the theatre, I had to sit through the newsreels that were shown before the movie started. They always gave me the shivers. 1960: First Airplane Flight. I was seven months pregnant and flying alone from El Paso to 36
