Who doesn’t love a good scare?

I get the biggest kick out of the weather, but never so much as when the forecast is for high winds or snowstorms. People run to the store and buy flashlights, batteries, lanterns, candles and extra food in case they lose power and/or can’t get to town. I’m convinced that we’re all like little kids, who love to be scared, to have just a little element of danger in our lives. Not too much, though. There’s a fine line between scary scared and fun scared. The weather can be both. I like to be in the comfort of my home while it’s snowing, blowing and raining. Seeing lightning and hearing thunder from inside? Fun! Exciting! Outside? Not so much

I also have a fascination with tornadoes, and I’ve actually seen one. On Sept. 28, 1962 my mom was making dinner and I was sitting on our couch looking out the window at a storm from the safety of our Kirkland home, when I noticed what I thought was a white smoke in a Seattle neighborhood across Lake Washington.

We had a view of the lake between two homes on the west side of our house, and I yelled to my mom that there was a fire in Seattle. She came into the living room and then we both watched the moving “smoke” destroy an airplane hanger at Sand Point Naval Air Station. It was traveling across Lake Washington when Mom said, “Oh, my gosh, I think it’s a tornado, “and we watched a lot of garbage and maybe birds twirling in the vortex across the lake. Because of our obscured view, we couldn’t see where it went, but found out later that it slammed into the Holmes Point Drive area of Juanita, and for years, driving along the Juanita-Kenmore road, we could see the swath it took up the hill, knocking down trees, before it died. I remember on the news later, reporters said it lifted a boy playing in a park.

I do like to be scared. When I was a little kid, there used to be a legend out here at Warm Beach about a blue light shining in the Florence Cemetery in the middle of the night. Many people swore they had seen it, driving home after midnight. I loved to imagine what the light looked like, and, even more than that, listening to the older kids who swore they had seen it. When we happened to be driving home on Marine Drive late at night in the summer, I’d ask my dad to drive slowly so I could peek up into the woods to see it. I never did. Years later, my friend, Dick Keitel, a rapscallion if there ever was one, admitted to going up to the cemetery with a few friends and a flashlight, shining it through the trees. Perhaps the color of the Evergreen trees gave it a bluish sheen. I was so disappointed. All my life I had believed it was a Warm Beach pioneer’s ghost haunting the cemetery when, actually, it was a bunch of goofy guys (probably filled with a few beers to help spur them on).

I used to enjoy carnival rides. Roller coasters were my favorite — the bigger the better. My parents took the family to Playland, a perpetual carnival-like place near Bitter Lake in Seattle, which had the biggest roller coaster I have ever ridden. Playland closed around the time of the World’s Fair, and we only went there a couple of times, but the first time I saw that roller coaster I felt like Bilbo Baggins about to slay the evil dragon. Dad put us on that roller coaster and I knew I was doomed to death. We first went jerkily, up, up, up this mountain of track, and then right at the top, we suddenly plunged down only to go up again, just as fast. By the time the ride was over, I begged to go again.

I don’t know when I became too old to go on the rides. Perhaps it’s around 50 when you realize that your inner organs are fragile enough as it is, and they don’t need to be tossed around anymore.

Movies are another way to get a thrill while being safe at the same time. My husband and I just watched “The Unknown,” starring Liam Neeson, and I got totally sucked into the movie, wondering what it must be like to be his character, being chased by evil criminals, not knowing why. It had a crazy premise, but I didn’t care. It was fun, wondering how Liam was going to get out of these incredible messes, watching the movie, sneaking peaks during really scary parts from under my blanket.

My husband kept saying, “It’s Liam Neeson! He’ll survive.”

Don’t even get me going on TV shows like “24,” “Dexter” and “Homeland.”

As a teenager, during slumber parties, my friends and I loved to have an occasional “séance.” One friend, who was very “woo woo” herself, used to lead them. One time, I hid under a bed in a room where I knew the séance was to take place. When our friend called out someone’s Aunt Myrtle, I scratched on a box, scaring all the girls, causing screams and hysteria. When I thought they were becoming too frightened, I decided to come out, and when one saw my scrawny hand emerge from under the bed, she fainted. Ack. I got in some trouble over that one.

I know that being too scared and being truly frightened by diabolical events is a horrible thing, but the fun kind of being scared, like telling ghost stories next to an outside fire pit or watching a thrilling movie, makes us feel alive. My life has gone on with scary stories and mysterious legends. As long as they’re not too frightening, and I can experience them from the safety of my home, that’s just fine with me.