William Beeson's Childhood Essay

"I find myself slashing vehemently and tumbling over the side of the pool out of the water."

I love this line because it is a perfect description of how children deal with fear. The essay lingers over the idea of something at the bottom of the pool--which is, I think, something that every kid with access to a pool obsesses over. Children dwell on these thoughts. They try to explain to themselves how something so scary could come about. They actually talk themselves into fearing the thing. Here is the final manifestation of childhood fear--the breathless and frantic escape from the thing that we've created. It's true to life.