Memoir 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 the entire hill was glazed with ice and my mother had warned me multiple times to be careful in these conditions, but 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 the perfect spot to build my ramp. Within minutes I found a perfect spot. The snow was about a foot deep and i knew it was the perfect conditions for 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 woods to find logs to build my ramp. Five logs later, I had a perfect 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 could not 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 test out my work.

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. They were very excited as well and headed up the hill to try 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 didnt bother me beacause my ramp had worked and i felt a if it was a great success. My neighbor then tried the ramp and it worked very well for her as well, but when her 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 travelling at full speed and fell to the ground. I figured that was it, I had killed the neighbor. He lay there motionless for awhile, buit eventually he got up and went srying baack to his house. This was the complete opposite from what i had expected would happen. I was devastated not so much that the kid had hit the pole, but thta 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 ilive 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 a lot of things that 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. While this event did not change my life in a great way, it was a little thing that made me a better person in my adult life. While it may seem a bit mean, I am glad that this event happened and it has stayed with me for many years.

The true test of if I had really learned anything from this event reallu came into play about 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 decided that going to class would be the right choice and i headed off to campus. Thsi would prove to be a great decision on my party because as fate would have it, I actually had a very important test that day that i had completely forgot 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 hasnt studied for, I was still happy I was at least at 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 thing 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 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 making the decisions I should be making. I will always look back to the day when I built that amazing ramp and feel proud and sad at the same time. Yes, I made a perfect looking 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 person .