This from a vintage issue of Sports Illustrated:

Sports Illustrated, May 30, 1955
The Question: What Frightens You Most? (asked Of Adventurers And Explorers)
Jimmy Jemail

LOWELL THOMAS, Pawling, N.Y.
Narrator and explorer
"Fright depends on thought. If you've no time to think you are not afraid. Danger is not a thing long drawn out. Two Frenchmen and I crashed in a small plane on our way to Africa. We had no time for anything but reflex action. Our lives saved, we stood there weak in the knees."

THEON WRIGHT, New York City
President Adventurers' Club
"Two things petrify me. The first is a single engine plane that sputters in flight. The second is a crazy man. And I'm talking from actual experience. The crazy man was violent and unpredictable. I didn't know what he was going to do. He was more frightening than a violent wife."

RAYMOND C. SCHINDLER, Tarrytown, N.Y.
World famous detective
"A holdup. I was held up in Los Angeles. Up went my hands, my knees shook violently I and I stammered 'Oh no.' With the gun in the hand of that degenerate-looking young jerk, nothing was worth more than my life. I did just what comes naturally, but believe me, I was plenty scared."

COMDR. EUGENE P. WILKINSON, USN
In command of atomic submarine "Nautilis"
"I grew up in Holtville, Calif., then a town of 1,500. New York bewilders me. The thing I that frightens me most is driving a car in this dense traffic. It makes me yearn for the peace you find at sea. When the sun comes out of the ocean, it always reminds me of sunrise on the farm."

KATHRYN CRAVENS, New York City
Author, adventurer, foreign correspondent
"In Brazil's 'Green Hell,' savages sent curare poisoned arrows whining in my direction. During World War II I was escorted out of forbidden Russian territory with bayonets at my back. I've visited leper colonies; been shot out of a cannon. What frightens me most? BOREDOM!"

SASHA SIEMEL, Green Lane, Pa.
Hunter
"My specialty is hunting jaguar with only a spear. That's dangerous enough, but what actually frightens me the most is the Piranha. They're killers. I saw two men blunder into a school of these fish. They were reduced to skeletons in three minutes. I made the same blunder but got away in time."

RUSSELL AITKEN, New York City
Big game hunter
"Crazy Sunday drivers. Speeding in their souped-up cars, they are a greater danger than all the rhinos, lions and Cape buffaloes I've encountered in four major safaris. A good rifleman can stop a charging tusker with a leg shot, but there's no way to stop a maniac who jumps the white line."

PETER FREUCHEN, Copenhagen, Denmark
Arctic explorer
"They say that nothing frightens me, that I once sawed off my frozen leg. That's not true. I only chopped off my toes with a chisel. The doctor sawed the leg off. Ice cap crevasses frighten me most. You can fall 1,000 feet or more. I once fell and hung by my sled traces, swinging back and forth."

JACQUELINE COCHRAN, Indio, Calif.
Flier and adventurer
"Snakes. They petrify me. I was once night flying at 14,000 feet over a hilly country. The engine failed, but I was afraid to bail out because I thought there were rattlesnakes on the ground. So I deliberately crashed and wrecked my plane at 4 a.m. There I sat with the cockpit closed until daylight."

CLYDE BEATTY, Fillmore, Calif.
World famous animal trainer
"Lions and tigers in the same act. They're natural enemies. But I don't dare show fright. Once, while working 32 lions and tigers in one ring, 28 got into the worst gang fight I ever saw. A tiger knocked me down and was clawing at my throat when a lion sprang on him, enabling me to escape."

LEWIS COTLOW, Beverly Hills, Calif.
Big game photographer
"I've just come back from eight months in Africa. I have been chased by a 450-pound gorilla. A rhino over-turned my jeep. A mother elephant charged me. I lived where Mau Mau were killing white men. So what frightens me? Walking alone through New York's Central Park at night."

Next?

Thanks MR! That's very interesting! For me, being in a room full of liberal democrats!

my wife-when she's pissed off

Marrying some one who ends up not supporting my love of hunting and travel and keeps me from doing it (until we get devoriced that is).

Brett

Being in thick cover, 5 feet from a cape buffalo with the smell of buffalo filling the nostrils, bringing the rifle to bear, dropping the safety, squeezing the trigger, and click. Of course I would imagine it would be worse with elephant or lion, with a uninjured buffalo you stand a 40% chance of survival.

John

I'm scared to death of snakes, but I think the things I worry about the most are light aircraft and bad roads!

I have had elephant bluff charges reduce my legs to jelly, nearly been arrested at third world protests, illegally traveled into "restricted" military areas, slept outside in lion country, watched hippos swim under my boat, and politely waved at "war vets" while hunting. What scares me? Sitting in an Air Zimbabwe flight and smelling smoke!

Being too ill, or under political restriction, or law to ever hunt again.

Preying Mantis's bloody hate em!

Death by crocodile.

A letter from my ex-wife's lawyer.

And any snake I see while I'm crawling around on the ground hunting.

I dont like snakes, death by croc Wow!!! been less then 20 feet from buf in heavy cover...
Did that firing pin break after the last shot on the range sighting in...

Oh yea, Have read Shasha Siemel stories of jaguar hunting and his nephew is a member here on AR..

Mike

Elephants

And I am booked with Buzz for 2 ele in 3 weeks.
No rifle, just a bloody skinny bow.

Snakes above all, especially African/Australian ones.

Without a doubt.... LIONS! Lions just scare the hell out of me.

Walking on slippery shale on steep mountain sides and a LONG WAY DOWN! People trying to text while driving and I am on my bike.

EZ

quote:

Originally posted by craig boddington:
I'm scared to death of snakes, . . .

+1

Been charged by buff, ele. and hippo.
Shot the hippo on a charge Thrilling. Buff and ele. were bluffing. I hate snakes and spiders.
What scares me is something bad happing to my daughter or my wife. That scarers me.

Being eaten alive, by anything! Not real fond of snakes either, not even the nonpoisonous varieties.

Tough question. Some interesting answers. I think I'm most afraid of an in-flight fire.

Becoming decrepted and usless in my old age.

Ill take death from any of the above over sitting in a chair and wasting away.

Like the first example in the original post, the things that happened to me in the past that should have really scared me happened so fast that there was no time to be afraid. Close calls with single engine planes, buffalo charges, stepping over venomous snakes,etc.


What I fear the most is my body wearing out while my mind is still good enough to know what miserable shape the body is in.

Unhappy elephants.

Not being able to hunt! On second thought not being allowed to hunt would be worse.

the notion of a stroke and being paralyzed and unable to communicate while my mind is whole. I saw that in a man I admired once.

Rich
DRSS

Flying, spiders and wasps.

L

What I fear most depends on time and circumstance. At one point it was being captured by the NVA, being too close to a rattle snake, trying to stop your slide on the side of a mountain, and a few others. Picking what I think would be the most unpleasant demise would be becoming part of the food chain for some animal.
What I worry about most, now that I have reached senior status is continued good health and the future for my children and grandchildren. I think I have lived in the best of times.

My ex-wives going in to a lawyers office together!

Flying and dying. Not necessarily in that order

I think the only time I got REALLY scared was when we followed a herd of buffalo, and found them lying down in a dry river bed.

Somehow they sensed us, and ran off to the other side into some high grass and some very thick bush. The area they went into is like a two-sided triangle, with mountains on two sides, and the dry river the third side. This wasn't a very big area, may about 200 yards at its longest distance.

We went after them into that thick area, and after realized that THAT wasn't such a great idea.

The herd kept running from one end to the other, turning as they met the mountain. They refused to get out in the open - the dry river bed!

We could hear them, and see the grass moving very close to us - at one point I think they muct have passed less than 5 yards from us.

There was no way in hell we could have saved ourselves with our rifles, as there would not have been anything visible before one is empaled on a horn!

We made a slow retreat out of that area.

Nelson stood with his legs tight together.

When asked why was he doing that, he answered "I did not want a buffalo to pass between me legs"

There are different types of fear...financial, political or physical. The first two have been present in the U.S. from and in my opinion as the result of the election year of 2008. Before it's over physical terror will come too. In the end it's the only way to make people give up everything they possess and roll over for a demagogue socialist regime that as each day passes is gradually dropping its mask and revealing its true nature. In my opinion the particular individual at its center will rank amongst history's most cruel, despotic tyrants.

In essence there are some forms of dying more terrible to the thought than others, but it's all just death no matter how. And I prefer any form of that over living out one's life as a slave.

Breeding herds of elephant just scare the crap out of me.

quote:

A good rifleman can stop a charging tusker with a leg shot

From initial post....

"A good rifleman can stop a charging tusker with a leg shot"

You buy that?

quote:

Originally posted by craig boddington:
I'm scared to death of snakes, but I think the things I worry about the most are light aircraft and bad roads!

Now you tell me ...

Is it worse when you have to ask the pilot where the hell you just landed?!

Mark,you REALLY ought to leave that to the elephant bulls
but if you feel the need again i'd like to watch

being able to smell the grizzly and not able to spot it

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Breeding herds of elephant just scare the crap out of me.

You? What about the young cows?

A big shark circling, and single engine planes quitting in the mountains.

Spiders and hights.
In that order. I hope never to encounter a spider while on a ladder.

- Lars

quote:

Originally posted by ravenr:
Mark,you REALLY ought to leave that to the elephant bulls
but if you feel the need again i'd like to watch

being able to smell the grizzly and not able to spot it

I should have added, going hunting with Brett in that God awful climate.