My oldest brother had to climb an extra five feet off a 35 foot extension ladder to splice our rope swing back into itself, over a perfect huge overarching branch. We braided the bottom of the rope adding four or five knots for hand and footholds.

After a while we knew every trick there was: like how to swing around neighboring trees, land on platforms, or fly upside down. We were running out of ways to one up each other. That’s when my brother started practicing pole vault maneuvers. I just had to find a way to outdo him. Big mistake!

I admired my brother’s obstacle. He had tied another rope across two trees at the far end of the runway. Then he hoisted himself upward and over, swinging and vaulting himself out toward the forest. Gravity would take over and he would fall safely into knee-deep mud. Soon he had raised the rope—his bar—to as high as running speed would allow him to go over.

The only way to exceed him was to climb up, wedged between two trees, as high as someone could reach the swinging rope up to me. I measured everything perfectly (well almost): the rope swing, the rope standard adjacent to me in the distance, and where I would have to hold to whip myself over my goal. As I jumped into swinging I remembered the giant root poking out of the ground at the midway point. There was no backing out. I tried to hold myself perpendicular to the ground while holding at the very bottom of the rope swing. Bam! My tailbone smacked directly on that root and I bounced across the ground to an inglorious halt, writhing in pain. It hurt to sit down for the next year.

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When I was 16 and a true blonde. I volunteered to help with a group of children on an outing to the park. Seems simple enough, however, when you let children out of the door and shut after, one must remember not to stick their own finger in the way. When I break a bone I choose tiny bones. The end of my finger bones. The very tip of my finger behind the nail. Even this tiny bone can be broken in the worst way. A double compound fracture. This mistake left the top of my finger dangling. Pushing it back into place I immediately screamed for help. The Doctor sewed stiches through my nail and did his best to reattach, though a little crooked.

Though all this, my finger hurting and nearly chopped off, was not my greatest concern. In true 16 year old fashion, I was more worried that I would have to cancel my date to prom that evening. Now this wasn’t just any Prom. This was my first date ever prom. This was my first date ever with the senior who I shared Typing class with. This was my first date ever with the senior boy in my typing class that I bored holes through the back of his head with my eyes.

Let’s just say the pain of the finger would never match the pain of missing this date. So I didn’t!

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When I was in the 4^th grade, my elementary school decided to put a zip line on our playground. There were bars on the side and a bar going across, and some of the kids would climb on top of the bars when they got across. One particular time I was zipping across and there were two girls on top of the bars, the one girl decided she wanted down so she pushed me off and I fell 5-6 (ish) feet down to the ground and broke my wrist.

It was during lunch recess, so there was still a couple hours left of school. I went in and told my teacher what happened and that my wrist really really hurt. She only saw the gravel scrapes, so she put a band-aid on my wrist and sent me back to my seat. She wouldn’t let me go home, wouldn’t let me call my mom, and wouldn’t even let me go get ice. She was a mean teacher!

A little later in the day, I was so swollen (from finger tip to elbow, pretty much), I went up to the teacher aid and asked her if it looked swollen to her. She agreed that it looked very swollen, so I went up to my teacher a second time and showed her. She still wouldn’t let me go home or call my mom. I just sat at my desk and cried; it hurt so bad! I couldn’t zip up my back pack–couldn’t even let my arm just hang down at my side or anything; it just hurt really bad! When I finally got home and showed my mom she was pretty mad. She asked me why I hadn’t called her, and I told her my teacher wouldn’t let me. If I was smart I would have just walked out and gone to the nurses office anyway.

We went to the hospital, they had to put a soft wrap on it for a couple weeks before they could even put a cast on it because it was so swollen. I was so sad my school class was going swimming at a rec center the next day and I couldn’t go. I came to school when they got back from their field trip. You should have seen my teachers face fall to the floor when she saw me in a sling!

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Editor’s Example:

Grandma and grandpa were babysitting when I broke my arm as a two year old. We had a metal stool with two steps. I climbed to the top to show them my best superman spin, yelling “up, up, and away.” Then I jumped up and spiraled downward from one platform to the next with a loud whack.

I did not fuss for too long, or complain much that night, because I wanted to be tough. The next day I could not raise my glass of milk at the breakfast table. That’s when my mom noticed the red line of a clear break.

The doctor actually did not believe the grandma and grandpa story. He attempted to put my arm back in socket while accusing my parents over and over of possible abuse. I winced with every jolt of my arm. Finally he realized that the “really active” two year old story was not a lie.

I remember my favorite part of the cast experience was getting signatures on my little cast. Someone even drew Bert and Ernie. My least favorite remembrance was trying to sleep with that obstruction knocking me in the head every time I tried to roll over.

It brought new meaning to the words, “terrible twos,” but I was ready to run, play, climb, and jump off more things soon enough.

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