He was wearing bib overalls. When he spoke, it was with conviction, like he was the sole authority on most any subject.

Regarding the summer weather in East Tennessee, he leaned forward, spat some tobacco juice, and opined on tornadoes. Of course, being from the Deep South, when he said “tornado” it sounded like “‘nader.”

“Well, my daddy don’t remember one in his lifetime and neither do I,” he said. “But I’ll tell you this — one of them 'naders ever gets in Chattanooga with all these mountains around, it’ll never get out.”

It was 1962, and I was five years old, sitting at this man’s feet with my daddy and his friends. We had finished a hearty campfire meal, and the men were holding forth on all types of subject matter. I went to bed in my sleeping bag that night thinking, Well, if one of the 'naders gets in and can’t get out, will I spend a lifetime here with a tornado just galavanting around and chewing up everything in its path?

Then it occurred to me that it would likely chew up the school that I was soon to attend and probably chew up all of the rail lines my daddy worked on. And that would leave us time together to just fish and hang out and enjoy summer — except we would have to keep dodging that 'nader for a lifetime…

I decided right then that I didn’t want anything to do with 'naders!

Although meteorological history has proven him wrong, I heard more than one adult in that era of the early '60s say the same thing about tornadoes in my hometown of Chattanooga — as if we didn’t have enough things to worry about already with the Cuban missile crisis threatening our obliteration.

Of course, growing into adulthood, I was astonished to discover that quicksand wasn’t as big a problem as all the cartoons and Western movies of the '50s and '60s made it out to be.

By the 1963 school year, I had already figured out that diving under the wood desk and putting my head between my legs wouldn’t save me from a 'nader or a nuclear blast, so I just stopped worrying about either one.

Most of the things we fear never happen. There is healthy fear and unhealthy fear. Healthy fear — or, better yet, healthy respect and preparation for a situation — is quite useful.

Afraid of the water? Learn how to swim in a pool you can stand up in. Afraid of being lost in the woods? Buy a good compass and learn how to use it. Afraid of a local disaster? Set aside a week or two of water and provisions.

Proper preparation for a situation is the assassin of fear, and once fear is gone, worry will simply scurry away as a most unwanted guest. Linda Ellis’s poem “The Dash” popularized the notion that “life is two dates with a dash in the middle.” Don’t let worry and irrational fear ruin making the most of that dash!

In the words of Seneca the Younger sometime before 50 AD: “There is nothing so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it in expecting evil before it arrives?”