SOLSC 3/31

Once on vacation in Missouri, when I was in the third grade (the summer after) my family and my cousins family rented out a house by the lake of the Ozarks. It was up a steep hill from the lake, but had a small dock that extended twenty feet into the lake. Right on the shore was a cement wall, so the hill abruptly ended and there was a four foot drop to the lake. There was a small bridge from the wall to the floating dock.

We went out and played on the dock frequently, and sometimes rented boats and drove them back to the dock. Playing in the water was fun, but some areas were full of gross decaying plant debris from a series of storms from a week before. One of these gross places was the cement wall – when I crossed the bridge I saw the bottom wall and was grossed out from all the stuff that collected on the bottom. There was also a section of large, sharp, rocks there, so lots of stuff got stuck between the rocks.

On the top of the wall was a rope that acted as a barrier, and we liked to sit on it, and rock back and forth, and talk to each other. On the third or fourth day of the trip I was sitting on the rope with the lake and four foot drop right behind me, gently swinging and talking to my cousin. Suddenly the rope snapped. I then started falling, and before I knew what was happening I was falling down the four foot drop, and I landed on the rocks. The impact hurt, but the sharp edges hurt more. I was also covered in gross lake water. My cousin rushed to my aid and pulled me up, and I limped away to the shower.