When I was seven years old in 1985, I watched Jaws, and it immediately became the most influential documentary of my childhood. I didn’t care that it took place in the ocean. I lived nowhere near an ocean. Geography meant nothing. That shark had range.
For weeks afterward, I treated every body of water like it was a potential crime scene. Bathtub? Shark. Kiddie pool? Shark. The deep end of the town pool? Absolutely shark. I would dip one toe in the water like I was testing for lava, then yank it back out because I was certain I saw a shadow.
And the music…that was the real problem. John Williams ruined my life for a solid month. Any time the lights flickered or the house creaked or my brother walked down the hallway too slowly, my brain supplied the soundtrack. Dun‑dun. Dun‑dun. I couldn’t even open the shower curtain without bracing for impact.
My parents tried to reassure me. “Sharks don’t live in the mountains,” they said, like that was supposed to help. I was seven. I believed in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and that the floor was lava if I jumped off the couch wrong. You think state lines or ridge lines were going to stop a shark that could eat a boat?
And the worst part was the swimming pool. The deep end was basically the Mariana Trench to me. I would swim as fast as I could across the shallow end, then cling to the wall like a barnacle if I drifted too far. If a leaf floated by, I was out of the water in under a second, convinced it was dorsal‑fin‑adjacent.
But here’s the thing: I kept watching it. Every time it came on TV, I was right there, sitting in my room, terrified and fascinated. Because that was the magic of 80s pop culture. It scared you, scarred you, and somehow became one of your favorite memories.
Looking back, Jaws didn’t just make me afraid of the ocean. It made me afraid of anything that held more than two inches of water. But it also gave me one of the funniest, most ridiculous childhood fears I ever had.
I kind of miss being that wonderfully dramatic.
Discover more from Retro Ramblings
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Weird. I grew up in southern Georgia, and coastal GA. The same fear about a pool, and it was the pool light. I was convinced that was a sharks mouth.
Spent most of my summers swimming in the ocean. We would see sharks all the time, mostly little like 4-5 feet and under. Never really gave it a thought. But, the pool..terrifying.