Alan Rodriguez
Janel Spencer
WRT 101S
17 October 2019
Ocean Man
When I was little I was just like any other kid; I had reasonable fears such as monsters, spiders, etc. These things were either not real or not very harmful, so I had nothing to worry about. Since I was from Arizona, I only imagined the ocean was a place where fish lived, and people went swimming occasionally. Little did I know the treacherous and terrifying things that lye within it. At the age of about 5, I went to my grandmother’s house to meet up with my cousins and hang out. We would all go to the one room that had a TV that wasn’t in the living room. As The night got darker the kids show would stop playing so I left the room. I decided to go back a little later because some of my older cousins were still in there and I wanted to hang with them. Unbeknownst to me, they were watching one of the most notorious horror films about the ocean, “JAWS.” It only took about 10 minutes for me to see this big creature that lives in the ocean attack and kill someone on screen. I immediately left the room without saying a word. I went to the living room trembling like I was outside in a snowstorm. My aunt had asked me, “What movie are you guys watching?” I replied with an eerie tone, “JAWS.” She told me that she is terrified of sharks and won’t go in the ocean because of that movie. I had no idea that this monster was real until that moment. This small but vivid memory led me not to only fear the ocean and sharks, but to want to study and learn more about them.
When I started 1st grade I had noticed this cool looking 3D learning book about sharks, and I knew I had read it every day in order to know my foe. This book sparked my interests in sharks, but It did not change my overall perception of them. I was always convinced that sharks were man eating beasts and only wanted to cause harm to other living things. It turned out that sharks were unique creatures and were more afraid of humans than we are of them. I would continue to try to find books about the ocean so that I could try to find more facts that would make me more knowledgeable or more at ease. Sadly, nothing ever worked, I still believed that sharks feed on humans whenever they could get the chance. During this time my family decided that we would take a vacation trip to Rock Point. I was not too worried because I knew that I didn’t have to go into the ocean if I didn’t want to. Then one day my family decides that we should take a ride on the “banana boat.” My stomach immediately dropped, I wanted nothing to do with going that far deep into the ocean. My parents kept on pushing me to try this out, even though they knew how terrified I was of the ocean. I ended up having to go on this terrifying experience, because they couldn’t leave me alone on the beach. I remember getting the trembling feeling again, like when I first saw “Jaws.” We ended up riding the “banana boat perfectly fine, but I held on to my handle with dear life. My dad was laughing at how relieved I was to be back on the shore.
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