Personal Narrative: A Walk At Castlewood State Park

Everyone has a favorite memory about their lives. My favorite memory took place when I traveled to Ohio in 2014 for Thanksgiving.

The semi-truck fired up, spilling out dark exhaust. I got in my car. I began to look at the interior closer. It was well used, the seats were torn and stained, the steering wheel flaked in my hand to reveal the foam beneath. A single key sat nicely on the center of the dashboard. I lay my gun against the passenger seat, the trigger facing towards me in case I needed to grab it in a hurry. I started the car up and rolled down the windows, allowing the air to flow through.

In an instant the car didn’t stop. Our car was bigger than it so it ricocheted off us. My mom’s car airbags deployed at 400 miles per hour, but my mom put her arm out to stop mine. The doctor said if she hadn’t done that, I would’ve broken a few bones in my face, and maybe my neck. Meanwhile in the other car, he went flying in the other direction, luckily he didn’t have a passenger because the whole side of the car was smashed in. After the airbags deployed, she anticipated hitting the telephone pole. My mom had taken this route to work everyday for 6 years, but she was wrong. We drove straight into the soybean field. My mom couldn’t touch the brake to stop the car so we drove through half of the field before stopping. Splosh, splosh of all the water and mud splashing as we got out of the car. My mom yells my name to make sure I am okay, then we hustled over to the other man’s car.

“Hold on, hold on,” my uncle yelled, “everyone’s going to get a turn, just wait! First we’re gonna take it on a test drive down the alley to make sure everything’s working correctly.” Everyone looked around at each other, a new found pout resting on our faces. We all stepped back onto the porch as we watched our parents start driving down the alley. We watched them until the very end of the alleyway, our eyes following their every move

I saw a motorcyclist in my left side mirror as my head whipped forward. A white pickup truck, with an ad for sewers on the side, spun from the carpool lane. It crossed all six lanes. Cars dodged the vehicle, swerving into other lanes. A green Volkswagen Beetle barely squeezed in front of us and a low riding Camaro proceeded to move behind. My car was trapped. My peripheral vision stayed fixed on the Harley which was mere inches from being taken out by every vehicle in the carpool and fast-lane. People were too close. Way too close. Tires screeched and the smell of burnt rubber filled the air as black tire tracks formed on the ground. The girl driving behind me had blue eyes. Panicked blue eyes. She was going to hit me. I instinctively put my car in neutral, cut behind the cars in the two lanes on the right, and took off in fourth gear to create a greater distance between my car and the inevitable disaster. I breathed in deeply. My hands trembled. It felt as if I had an insane amount of coffee.

Reality hits, I could have a heart attack. I slow my pace and head back to the street. I lean over to stretch and am tempted to phone my mom to come and get me or to call 911. My legs are useless and near collapse. I wait with burning lungs. A grey SUV passes, I let it. Several more vehicles follow before I have the strength to stand, and move forward. After that, under the moonlight, I see a black Porsche with a tan top pass. No doubt, that’s him. Before I can grasp what to do, the car moves backwards towards me. In seconds, it stops. “Do you want a lift?” I utter nothing, and open the passenger door. Once seated, he says, “You’re brave to be out late at night

It seems that every time I go out hiking or just stop to enjoy nature in some way I seem to notice that we as humans love to leave our footprint in any way possible. We blaze trails. We . We pile up our feet like rocks and stamp them down without caring what we affect. Something as harmless as building a fort on the beach could harm something. We disturb organisms’ habitats for the sake of a laugh. Is it worth it? I am someone who hates staying on the trail with all my heart, and I guess my personality matches my unwillingness to conform to the one basic line of dirt that I am supposed to follow to get to the same destination as everybody else, to see exactly what everybody else sees and not ever get close to the boulder that towers above the trail, to touch the rough skin of this giant... rock. I want to brush my fingers through the dry moss and scrape my hands, to climbing this mountain of ancient life. I’ve had to descend my tower and look at the destruction I cause when I venture off the designated trail. I started to think if everybody ventured off the trail and went there different ways there would be nothing to look at. All the flowers and plants

When the car came to a stop, I was startled but relieved. I opened my car door and found myself standing in the median of the bypass. I didn’t even know what to do but I guess the anger in me started running towards the car that had hit me. I saw that it was a girl who looked a little older than me. I was thinking in my head “How could she be so careless?” She immediately started walking towards me repeating herself “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone running towards me. When I looked up, I saw a face that I recognized and instantly felt somewhat relieved to know I had my cousin Connor with me. “Are you okay?” Connor asked. “I’m fine but my car is far from it.” I cried. As soon as I saw my car I immediately fell to the ground in the middle of the road. The passenger door was completely destroyed, the paint on my once beautiful car looked so hideous now. I was devastated, anyone would be if they just witnessed the life

I ripped open the door so hard the whole truck started shaking from the shir force of my pull. “Damn I'm strong” I thought when I realized what actually happened. I looked back at the house to see if my father had seen what I did and with my luck he had been watching me the whole time he still had the damn smirk on his face. “I’m gonna have to hear a lecture later about not beating the shit out of vehicles”, I climbed in the truck but it looked like a little kid trying to shove a cube into a circular hole. Finally I positioned myself just right that I could fit my whole body into the driver's seat, but of course my head was always touching the roof and I had no leg room to switch from the different pedals. I jammed my foot down on the brake, then I forced the key into the

The car suddenly went off the road and into a large ditch, catching some air as its forward momentum continued. The car and I abruptly stopped after we went head first into a tree. At the same time, hearing and seeing the airbag go off, but also the sound of screeching tortured metal crumpling as it hit the tree is what stains my mind. The airbag obscured my vision and the plume of smoke that followed right after. The smell of used gunpowder is what penetrated the air as I begin to get out of the shock of what just happened. At first, I thought the car was going to set on fire, so I quickly kicked open the crumpled door to get out. Once I was out, I was struggling to get out of the thorn bushes that surrounded the perimeter of the vehicle, which completely shredded both of my legs in the process. I was more injured by the thorn bushes, than the actual crashed, which I found humorous. After looking at the mangled metal that used to be my first car, I started to realize how lucky I was. I was personally more angered about my stupidity than anything else, yelling obscenities as a few people started to come closer to see if I was okay and inspect the

As the car engine revved once more, and we reached the main road, my dad’s wide eyes and jaw semi-dropped catches my eye. Before I can say anything, my dad tells my mom to pull over. She follows his directions almost immediately as what appeared to catch my dad’s eyes caught hers. We quickly turned into Walmart as did the car behind us. The sound of shrieking tires and the crunching of two cars have now scarred my ears forever. The car behind us was totaled, ours was not. A man jumps out and runs. Two more get out of the car and sprint in opposite directions. Squads swarm in the parking lot and block all the entrances and exits so no one can come in or come out. As I peer back towards the man, he is gone, only getting a quick glimpse of the back of his foot before he disappears behind the pile of leaves and the trees. A police officer chases after him and another appears around the corner with someone struggling to break free of their grip. Minutes went by, with me still on my knees on the seat peering out the back window of the car. I heard more sirens but this time, they are higher pitched, I look and see red and white lights.

Do you love cars so much that you'll risk your life every time you hop into the driver seat? Well, I risk my life every weekend to do what I love which is drag racing against other people. It was a cold dark night, all you can hear in the background is the wind blowing, the sound of the crowd cheering and the sounds of cars starting up their engines. Also, the smell of gasoline, oil, burnt rubber and fumes from the all the cars filled the air. Disappointment, anger and being frightened filled my mind while I was waiting for someone to come and get me out of this hot car that was lying on the hot pavement. The weight of the car crushing my lower half of my body had me terrified and made me start worrying that my legs could have been paralyzed for life and think to myself saying to myself “how could have this happen? what did I do wrong?”

We finally got out of the car, and my dad asked, “Dany, can you go change so you can help me fix your sister’s car?” “Sure, I’ll be right back.” I walked to my room slowly because I had cramps in my legs due to sitting down for two miserable hours. After getting dressed and eating a snack, we started working on the car. My grandfather and mom came outside to assist us.

Sent sailing in the air and over the ditch. The wheels are out of control. I effortlessly hit five mailboxes, a sign, while being tossed back and forth through several trees like a ball in a pinball machine. Branches whacking me in the face through my broken windows, until finally I came to this life alternating moment, was this it? Then, right before my car hit headfirst into its last tree and finally it came to a stop. I took a deep breathe. Then, I looked around and realized that I was alive. I opened my door and took a staggered few steps outside the car. I yelled for help because I couldn’t seem to find all the pieces of my phone. Everything is my car was tossed around and broken. My car looked like it had been hammered all around. There was no way I could drive it now and the windows busted out on each side. I stood there and asked myself, how am I in such good condition when my car is completely totaled. It’s the realization that I could have died today and I did not. Many people get killed in car accidents, after my accident, I learned how significant it was to pay more consideration to the vehicle I had on the road and its maintenance. Now I am more conscious of my car’s necessities. Here are some things I pay more attention to now that I have had this accident. The mistakes we tend to make as young adult drivers. These are some things to take into account from my mistakes during my accident and to use them to make

After what felt like eternity, I dazedly watched the grey suburban second in line behind the truck stop inches from hitting the van in front of it. Before the suburban stopped completely, I heard a woman’s scream. Then a girl jumped out of the backseat and ran towards my car.