With all the wintery weather lately I thought it would be fun to pull a classic winter story from my childhood out of the vault. This story is so classic that it is still brought up at family gatherings to this day, much to my dismay. It’s probably one of the craziest, most embarrassing things I’ve ever done, yet it was all one my creative Colleen ideas. What was idea you may ask? Let’s read on to find out.
The year was 2004 and I was 11 years old. My younger brother Mark and I were enjoying our extended time off from school due to Martin Luther King Jr Day and were having a fun day playing in the snow. After doing the classic winter activities of building a snowman, having a snow ball fight and making snow angels, I was starting to get a little bored and wanted to find something new to do. So I went into the garage to see what I could find. The first thing I found was a few of our sand buckets stored away. I got them out and started building a snow castle with them. Mark joined me and this turned out to be a fun thing to do. Snow was much better building material than sand because it was wet and held together better. We ended up making a really neat looking snow castle. The next thing to catch my eye in the garage was our big purple sled. Sledding! Why hadn’t I thought of it sooner? I ran into the backyard to see if I could find a good hill and realized there was a huge hill going from the side of our deck all the way down to the ravine. There was also a wooden fence going down the left side of the hill. But I didn’t think anything of it and thought I found the greatest sledding hill ever! So I ran to go find my brother. “Hey Mark, do you want to go sledding?” “Yeah sure” he replied. So we went into the garage and grabbed our purple sled. I then led Mark to the hill I found. He was a little hesitant at first but I managed to convince him that sledding into the ravine would be fun. Spoiler alert!! It wasn’t! I was the first to try out the new sledding hill. I got on the sled and Mark gave me a push. The sled went super fast, almost like a roller coaster and stopped just short of the ravine. It was a lot faster than I thought it would be and I was a little scared but I still had fun. Mark went next and didn’t quite make it into the ravine either. When it was my turn again I jumped back on the sled and Mark pushed me again. But this time something weird happened, the sled started to go crooked. I tried to steer it but couldn’t in time. Before I knew it I ran into the fence face first before sliding under it and going all the way into the ravine.
“ Colleen are you okay?” Mark yelled down to me. My mouth hurt a lot and I could tell I was bleeding. But there was also another problem, I was completely trapped in the ravine. Whenever I tried to move the sled would also start moving again so there was no way I could get out on my own. So I told Mark to get Dad. I knew we would probably be in trouble for this but I couldn’t stay in the ravine forever. So Mark ran towards the house to get help. Just minutes later he returned with our dad. Dad seemed really worried about me, “Colleen, are you okay?” He asked in a panicked tone. I replied that my mouth hurt and I was stuck. So my dad quickly ran into the ravine and got me out. He had Mark grab the sled and my pink and gray winter hat that had flown off my head when I hit the fence and follow him as he carried me back towards the house. He put me down as soon as we were in the house and I took a quick peek in the mirror before following my dad to the upstairs bathroom to get cleaned up. My lips were completely covered in blood and I had a scrape under my chin. I was worried I would need to get stitches. But my dad cleaned up my face and said I just had some bruises and scrapes, no need for stitches. I was relieved but still in pain. After I was all cleaned up my dad gave me some warm apple juice to drink. As I was having my juice I heard him giving Mark a little talking to. He explained how dangerous it was to sled into the ravine and around a fence and that we needed to find safer places to go sledding. I felt kind of bad because this had all been my idea and Mark was getting more blame for it then I was. But I guess my dad felt bad for me because I was hurt.
After I finished my juice I laid on the couch to rest. Everything that happened suddenly just hit me and I started crying. My mom came over to comfort me and give me some cuddles like any mother would. I felt better after a while. My mom then turned on the TV for me and gave me some yogurt covered raisins to eat, one of my favorite snacks. I tried to eat the raisins but it was very painful to chew, probably because I bruised a jawbone when I hit the fence. It unfortunately continued to hurt to eat anything for the next couple days. Later that day my mom told me there was something for me at the kitchen table. I ran into the kitchen to find my seat at our kitchen and found a note from Mark on my placemat. It read “SORRY” in big letters. Next to the note was a fuse bead star he had made. Earlier that day before we went out in the snow, Mark and I were showing each other our collection of fuse bead designs we had made over the years. My favorite one of Mark’s was a pink, green and yellow star with a blue Christmas tree in the center. And Mark had decided to give that one to me after I got hurt. I ran upstairs to go thank him.
The craziest part of this experience was having to explain my very visible injuries to everyone I saw in the next few days. My Aunt and Uncle came over with their 3 boys the day after my accident and my mom was not shy about what happened. “Look what Colleen did out in the snow.” She announced and had me show off my injuries. I think everyone was shocked when they saw how scraped up my chin was. I also got asked about what happened to my face all day at school when I returned after the long weekend. It got a little tiring to have to explain in repeatedly. I definitely learned a good lesson that day about not attempting dangerous stunts and I can’t say I have stepped foot on a sled since.
