Walking out the front door can be dangerous.
Visiting Aruba during spring break is not without its risks.
Visiting a Cincinnati zoo, an alligator-enlivened theme park, or a gay nightclub is not without its risks.
There’s really no place you can go that is entirely risk-free. Not even a church.
Some of us put ourselves in harm’s way intentionally.
“Four deaths in four days on Mount Everest,” the headline said.
Did you really think that Steve Irwin was going to get out of here alive? What was wrong with Evel Knievel? He suffered more than 400 bone fractures. Kept at it. Jumping over things.
I trip over the dog and that’s my excitement for the day.
Rest assured because your daughter is attending a university in Waco, Texas. In Palo Alto, California. In Nashville, Tennessee. Not really.
Movie houses, schools, box stores.
There are makeshift memorials everywhere.
I am not The Most Interesting Man in the World, or even close to it. When it comes to taking chances, daredevilry, or being an adventurer, I am a DeSoto on blocks.
Not walking out the front door can be dangerous too.
Jesse James in the next apartment might clean his gun unsafely.
Some people understandably have lived in fear, minute after minute. Those interned in Nazi concentration camps, for example.
Others are afraid of a long list of things that prevent them from fully experiencing life.
I am not in that category, but I am much more selective about when and where I go than I once was.
We are much more trusting when we are younger.
Children trust their parents, their teachers, their guardians and their clergy, but, unfortunately, that sometimes goes very awry.
Someone said that danger is real, but fear is a choice.
I used to be afraid of the dentist.
I had a good reason to be afraid of the dentist. I inherited some significant dental woes prior to the invention of novocaine (procaine).
Mama mia.
In the past 18 months I have had a root canal, two extractions, an implant, and two crowns.
Thanks to a great dentist, there was very little procedural discomfort, and practically no pain afterwards.
Further, my dentist employs 19 women, all of them are very professional, and by gum, very attractive.
They laugh at my jokes.
So what was once a nightmare, is now the exact opposite.
However, it is not without its costs. Namely its costs.
There are parachutists, bungees jumpers, whitewater rafters, and extreme athletes in a wide variety of sports.
There are men and women who get in the ring and beat the stuffing out of each other. Beats me why they do it.
I have never been interested in speed. My own, or watching someone else go fast.
Roller coasters are lost on me.
Life seems to be enough of a roller coaster for me.
Try opening the morning paper without getting on a roller coaster.
There is a family that I have never comprehended.
The Flying Wallendas are a high-wire act that performs without a safety net. A number of them have been injured, and a number of them have fallen to their deaths.
On the other hand, I am extremely cautious when I walk across the street to the mailboxes.
Neighbors back out without looking. Meteors fall out of the sky. There are kamikaze squirrels out there, I am sure of it.
As Bela Lugosi said, “Bevare!”
Craig Marshall Smith is an artist, educator and Highlands Ranch resident. He can be reached at craigmarshallsmith@comcast.net.