Memoir Assignment Final Draft

It was a perfect winter day with the white snow glistening in the morning sun. I was thirteen and on top of the hill my family had lived on my entire life. The road down the entire hill was glazed with ice and my mother warned me,"You need to be careful in these conditions" to which I simply replied,"You know I will mom." Even though I value my mothers opinion very highly, I could not let such a perfect day go to waste. I grabbed my fathers 1970 candy apple red racing sled and began my descent down the hill to find a perfect spot to built my ramp. Within minutes I found a perfect spot that would not only let me build up enough speed, but it also had a nice flat ending where the ramp would be built. The snow was about a foot deep and I knew it was the perfect conditions to build this ramp. I began to pat down the snow and after almost an hour I had a 100 foot long three foot wide runway. I then headed to the dense deer infested woods to find logs to build my ramp. Five logs later, I had all the tools I needed and a pretty good looking ramp. I began to cover the logs with snow and when all was said and done, the ramp looked like it was straight out of a movie. I had finally done it; I had built a ramp that even I couldn't believe. It was perfectly straight and ended in a slight slope that would launch me at least five feet into the air. It was so perfect that I really did not think anything could go wrong and I was incredibly anxious to try out my work. This would seem like potentially the greatest day of my young life, but it would turn out to be an event that ended in disaster and proved to be a very important life lesson that I will take with me forever.
Having the mindset that this was such a perfect ramp, I was very excited and naturally I told my neighbors about the amazing feat I had accomplished. I could see the spark in each of their eyes when I spoke of this ramp and I knew that this was going to be a great day. They were very excited as well and headed up the hill to try of this ramp. I was the first to try it out and after launching in the air, I realized I landed a bit close to a telephone pole, but this did not bother me because my ramp had worked and I felt as if it was a great success. My neighbor then tried the ramp, she launched into the air beautifully and while landing in a burst of snow, I noticed she clipped the telephone pole with her sled. This probably should have been a sign to stop using the ramp, but I ignored these signs and it was my other neighbors turn. I figured I had survived the jump and so had my neighbor so there was no need to worry, but when my neighbors little brother tried out the ramp, it was a completely different story. He flew down the runway much faster than either me or my neighbor and as soon as he went airborne, I knew this was going to be the last jump of the day. He slammed into the telephone pole traveling at full speed and fell limply to the ground. I figured that this was it, I had killed the neighbor and not only was my ramp not going to be used again, but at the ripe age of thirteen I was going to jail. He lay there motionless for awhile, but eventually he got up and went crying back to his house. I didn't even give his parents a chance to come up and yell at me. I went straight back to my house and to my room where I figured maybe I would be safe. This was the complete opposite from what I had expected to happen. I was devastated not so much that the kid had hit the pole, but that I knew my ramp would be torn down. After this event, I was yelled at a great deal and like I had dreaded, my ramp was torn down.
While this seemed like a nonchalant and insignificant event in my life, it proved to have a great impact on how I live my life today. Before this event, I had no appreciation for the "what if" in life. I simply did whatever I wanted without ever thinking that something bad could come from what i was doing. This event really taught me that you need to "look before you leap" literally and figuratively. I like to think that because I built a ramp that led to an eight year old kid flying into a pole I am a better person today. I now put alot of things I do into perspective before I do them. When I am about to do something that seems a bit controversial I think about all the things that could happen as a result of my action and look back to that day when my perfect ramp was destroyed. It gets me through every day much smoother and really has helped me much more than I ever thought possible. While this event did not change my life in a great way, it was a little thing that made me a better person in ym adult life. It may seem a bit mean, but I am glad that this event happened and it has stayed with me for many years.
The true test of whether I had learned anything from this event really came into play abouit three weeks ago. It was a monday morning and I could not stand the idea of going to class so early in the morning. I looked back to the event in my childhood and thought of what would happen if I just skipped class for the day and slept. I weighed my options and eventually I decided that going to class would be the right choice and I headed off to campus. This would prove to be a great decision on my part because as fate would have it, I actually had a very important test that day that I had completelly forgotten about. I entered my sociology class and immediately realized it was test day and while I was not happy we had a test that I hadnt studied for, I was still happy I was at least at class.Everyone around me was silent and nervous in anticipation as I sat there just happy to be in class. I did not do well on this test, but had I decided not to go to class I would have done significantly worse. This childhood event saved a class grade for me and this is just one of the events in which my childhood memory helped me out greatly.
This insignificant event in my childhood has shown me that it really is the small things in life that make you into the person you are today. An eight year old flying off a ramp into a pole would just seem sad and mean to others, but it proved to be an event that helped shape who I am today. I am now confident in the decisions I make because I know that I have gove over all the pros and cons and that even if I make the incorrect decision I didnt just jump into it and make an unintelligent decision. I now am a much more cautious person in the decisions I make and while I dont always make the right choices, this event helped steer me toward marking the decisions I should be making. I will always look back to the day when I built that amazing ramp and feel sad and proud at the same time. Yes, I made and amazing ramp and no, it didnt really work, but it did teach me a great deal and I am very thankful for that. I can now look back at this and smile knowing that it made me a better and more mature person.