Just the other day, I was asked what my biggest fear was. When I couldn't think of anything I was asked what was the scariest thing that I ever witnessed. This was difficult for me. You would have to know my past to fully understand.

I grew up on the West Side of Chicago in a neighborhood called Humbolt Park. It was a place where every kid wanted to be a gangster like their older brothers. Not gangbaners, those were mischievous thugs always up to no good. No, gangsters in the sense like those glorified in The Godfather movies. Gangsters were modern day cowboys.

My grandfather came to this country from Italy during the Great Depression and struggled as an Italian immigrant to gain respect and disassociate himself and his family from the stigma of being Italian therefore being in the Mafia. He beat the idea of being a gangster out of his sons and out of me at times. As soon as he could, he moved his family to the suburbs, and my father moved us the the North Side which was much more tame.

It was on the North Side, at age 12, where I witnessed a close friend fall on the railroad tracks just as a train come rolling through. It decapitated him and his head rolled down the embankment, almost to my feet. But that wasn't the scarriest thing I witnessed.

Later in the Army, I was a combat medic assigned to many different tasks. I witnessed many tragedies. There was an Army Captain so distraught over finding out his wife was cheating on him that he put a revolver in his mouth and splattered his brains all over his kitchen wall, hardly phased me. There was the time when I was in the field, in the middle of the Mojave Desert, and some jokester tossed a huge scorpion on my chest as I was resting in the shade, I knew it was the small scorpions that I had to worry about so I just brushed it aside and planned a little revenge. There was an incident on the mortar range where a misfire caused two Scouts to carry the arsenal down range to do a controlled dump, only when they were 30 feet away the mortar exploded sending shrapnel into one soldiers rear end and slicing through the other soldiers left leg, leaving it hanging by just the skin below his knee. I kept my cool, contained the wounds, called in medivac and saved that mans leg.

How could I be so desensitized to things that would cause most people to panic or at the very least puke their guts up. Was it all the horror films I watched as a kid? It had to be. I fell asleep during the Exorcist. I was un-phased by the Omen. I laughed my butt off when the heads exploded in Scanners (which I remember caused a lot of heads to turn towards me, that was a little creepy.) Okay, I did get stirred up a bit with Jaws, but who didn't?

My parents use to take me to the drive-in theater all the time. Usually it was double feature and the second film was always a horror flick. I was supposed to be asleep by then but I was intrigued by a showing of Night of the Living Dead and always tried to stay awake for the good stuff.

I remember now. It was the summer of 1978, I was nine years old. We were visiting my grandparents in he suburbs of Chicago for the weekend and had just been to a drive-in movie theater to see a double feature. The first film was a Burt Reynolds action movie called Hooper and it was followed but the much awaited Jaws 2. Hooper, by the way was great where Jaws 2 was a yawn.

I soon found out that the treat to the drive-in was a ploy to get me out of the way while my father, grandfather and a couple uncles took off on a weekend fishing trip. No kids allowed. That really sucked. So, I was stuck with the women.

The night after the movies, I was forced to stay by my aunts house, which was just down the street from my grandma's home, while the ladies played cards. Being the oldest, I was tasked with entertaining my younger sister and an aunt that is a year younger than myself.

Evening seemed to come in quick and the adult "kool aid" was taking its toll on my mom, aunt and grandma. I would wander into the kitchen once in a while to give mom some advice on how to play her hand. That was always met with a "kids should be seen and not heard" by my aunt, Donna.

Grandma was running out of cigarettes and asked me if I would run up the street to fetch her another pack of Pall Malls from her bedroom dresser. Mom protested because it was dark but I was eager to do anything to get out of the house. Grandma insisted that I take my younger aunt, Gina, along with me. Mom said fine and I didn't wait for her to change her mind. Gina and I ran out of the house but then took our time walking to grandma's house. I had to hold Gina's hand the entire way because she was, and still is, a big scaredy cat.

It was only a five minute walk but it seemed to last longer. When we arrived, the house was really dark. Gina didn't want to go inside so I turned the light on for the front stoop and told her to wait for me and she did.

Grandma's bedroom was on the second floor and I took the steps 2 at a time, trying to be as quick as I could. I ran right up to the dresser and found the pack of Pall Malls right where they were supposed to be, but also a pack of Wrigleys' chewing gum which I took with a big smile.

Something had just occurred to me. I didn't turn the bedroom light on, which was always off, but the room was well lit from the light in the closet. Chills started to ride my neck because first I noticed the lights draw string was swinging back and forth and second, just below the light stood the creepiest 3 foot tall doll I had ever seen. I knew grandma collected them but the image of this one still haunts me today.

It seemed like I was in slow motion. The string swung very slow and the dolls arms were outstretched. My eyes went from the string to the dolls eyes. Just then, the dolls left eye closed, like it was blinking to me, then it just fell over.

I seen enough horror films in my short nine years to know I was in danger. I ran. Down the stairs 4 at a time. Gina seen the look on my face and she was already to the street by the time I made it out the front door. We ran as fast as we could, me still holding Gina's' hand because she needed me. We burst through the door at my aunt Donna's home and frantically I described what I had just witnessed. I thought for sure nobody would believe me but Grandma did. She called the police and started back to her own home with my mom in tow.

The police got to grandma's house before she did and luckily so. They caught two burglars trying to climb out the second story window of my grandparents bedroom, after throwing my grandfathers safe out before them.

Grandma knew something was wrong right away. She never left her home with lights on, ever. It was years later that she told me that, when we would tell old stories. Until she told me, I always thought she believed what I did, that the doll was alive.

To this day, I still believe that doll was trying to warn me that there were intruders in the house. The troubling thing is, to believe that means the doll had to be conscious. Can you say Chucky!

This was the scariest thing I ever witnessed.