Jamie Janosz

On my morning walk, I saw a 40-something man and woman jump out of their beach patrol van and run to the sand dune about 500 yards from shore. They were checking a sea turtle nest. May to October is sea turtle season on the Atlantic coast of Florida. This is the time when the mamas come ashore to lay their eggs, and Floridians takes this sea turtle stuff very seriously. Volunteers carefully mark and protect each nest, putting wooden stakes in four corners around the perimeter, securing it with a line and a stern warning sticker – not to disturb the protected nest. Almost every day, you will see volunteers trekking up and down the beach stopping to check each and every nest on the miles of shoreline. They’re looking for any damage (there are laws against disturbing the marked nesting zones), and they set up new markers when beach goers call in a sighting. They’re waiting. Waiting for those babies to hatch. When they hatch – it is amazing . The little babies...

Remember those thick, crusty scabs you would get as a kid? My skin-the-knee-years were in the early 70s, and I would often return from a wobbly bike ride with my knee scraped and bloody. Tears streaming down my face, I would park my purple, banana seat bike – with its white flower-covered plastic basket, in the driveway and burst into our ranch-style suburban house in search of my mom. She would get the “cure-all” basket out of our bathroom, wipe the dirt off of my injured knee, and apply Merthiolate (the pinkish liquid applied with a dropper) to my cut, blowing on it to soothe the sting. But the days afterward weren’t pretty either. The scrape would scab over. And it was hard to resist picking at its itchy ugliness. Blood, I learned, was not my friend. Not only did I fear blood, I was terrified of any sort of injury. A safety first child, I dreaded gym class and even opted out of outings to the toboggan hill or roller skating rink. Blood and fear were forever linke...