We all have fears. Some of them are well-founded and help us survive. Others are irrational and are hard to explain.

I have two fears most of you might call irrational:

I am afraid of a ringing telephone.

And I am afraid of power outages.

If I were lying on an analyst's couch, I would probably say that my phone and power fears are rooted in my childhood. We didn't have phones or electricity then. Perhaps, as a youngster, I failed to develop the inner mechanisms needed to cope with the sudden noise of a phone or the loss of electrical power.

Let me digress a moment into the animal world.

I marvel that a newborn calf can stand, walk and nuzzle its mother looking for its first meal -- all within a few minutes. Calves instinctively know how to do these things. Every animal has its built-in instincts. Newborn humans also are ready to eat soon after delivery, but they can't stand or walk to accomplish that. They rely on the nurturing of others.

Do you suppose the day will come when humans will have an instinctive skill for driving? Or texting? Is this why the modern electronic gadgets in our family-room entertainment center are such a source of confusion and frustration for me, but not for any 5-year-old?

Perhaps my "instinct theory" can also explain why our sons don't panic when their computers go haywire. They fix the problem and go on. They have used computers all their lives. I, on the other hand, am reluctant to touch anything on the keyboard for fear something will blow up.

That's why I'm afraid of phones and power outages. I'm concerned that whatever I do, something will explode.

Take phone calls, for example.

We didn't have a phone in the farmhouse where I grew up on Killough Valley in the Ozarks over yonder. Obviously, I didn't learn the art of chit-chatting on the phone in my formative years. In those pre-phone days, the use of a telephone was restricted to medical emergencies and letting someone know about a death in the family. To this day the ringing of a phone immediately makes me think of bad news -- an explosion in a comfortable world.

As for power outages, I know it is possible to survive without electricity. I was 8 years old before power came to Killough Valley. Before that, there was nothing to be afraid of when the sun set or the temperature dropped. We lit coal-oil lamps and threw more wood into the stove.

Nowadays, however, we don't have lamps. We have flashlights, and the batteries are usually dead when we need light. It's been so long since we had a fire in the fireplace that we don't know if it would even be safe. Besides, we don't have any wood to burn. And our gas furnace won't come on without power. Who thought of that?

When the ice storm was making its way toward Southeast Missouri earlier this week, I had this sense of dread. I worried nonstop about losing power. The electricity went off during last year's ice storm. We were lucky. It was only off 16 hours. Even without heat, the temperature in the house didn't get below the mid-60s, thanks to good insulation and windows.

This year my fear of a snapped power line somewhere in our neighborhood was far worse than actually losing power last year. Our power did not go off this week. A few limbs fell to the lawn, but nothing near any power lines.

We may have been lucky this year because we had such a devastating ice storm last year. Most of the most damaging limbs fell a year ago. There was nothing left to fall.

Or maybe the ice wasn't quite as bad on the trees this year.

I'm glad the storm is over. Wednesday's sunshine was wonderful. I used to be afraid of getting shots, until I reached an age where I needed more of them. Maybe if we keep having ice storms and losing power, I'll get used to that, too.

jsullivan@semissourian.com