I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this before, but I was afraid of the monsters in our basement.

And the ones in the attic.

I suppose that’s not unusual for children, but the embarrassing part is that my fear followed me into adulthood. Even after I was married, with children of my own and a mortgage to pay, if I couldn’t turn on the light before descending the five steps into our cluttered basement, I would hurry down, grab what I needed, and race back upstairs to safety with the speed of an Olympic sprinter.

The monsters weren’t confined to home. When the movie Jaws came out in 1975, I was so unnerved on the drive home that I kept checking the rearview mirror, half-expecting a predator of........

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