I still remember cruising around with my little yellow Yamaha 120cc four-wheeler, before it was broken and  jerry-rigged back together again and again. When I was around ten years old, Dad finally let me drive the little Yamaha. It was already old and beat up when we had gotten it years before. After many attempts, I finally learned how to coax the four-wheeler to life, and keep it alive by shifting the gears at just the right time. When I drove it, I felt as fast as a jet. As I got better at shifting gears I got faster and faster, until everything became a blur around me. I could drive it for hours without getting bored. Soon I was doing little tricks on it, from jumps to drifting. I became more daring by the second.

Dad noticed this, made me put on my little blue bike helmet, and said “No more drifting,” and “ Someday your going to have work to do and won't have time to ride around on that four wheeler all day.”  I chose not to hear some of his words of wisdom and I ignore the last statement, but I did put on a helmet.Thinking on it now, I wish I would have listened to all my Dad's advice. At least I had a helmet on.

There was a dirt patch that was great for drifting in the back yard. I started out slow but soon sped through, jerking the handles and leaning to the side. I could drift through the dirt then fly forward right in between the deck and a large flowering tree perfectly. The tree was a large, flowering tree that was just starting to fully bloom. It was a beautiful sunny summer day, with the birds chirping and the smell of summer all around me. On my four-wheeler however, all I could smell was gas and exhaust. The only thing I could hear was the whine of the engine and wind roaring around me. The best part was the feeling of excitement I felt as I tried out new, increasingly daring tricks.

Soon I figured I had drifting mastered, so I decided to rev the four-wheeler as fast as it could go. To prepare for the drift I leaned to one side and turned the handles as I slid smoothly through the dirt. Then suddenly my tires caught too late and pointed me directly towards the tree. In a moment I jerked the handles to try and get away, and it worked. I narrowly escaped the sharp branches, and as I glanced back at the budding tree with a sigh of relief I thought about how pretty everything looked this time of year. I glanced forward just in time to see the brown wooden siding.

I rammed full speed into the deck.

My four-wheeler smashed through the weaker siding like it was paper, and I was just the right height to collide head first into the floorboards. I destroyed my helmet, flew off the back of the four-wheeler, and landed in the grass completely dazed. When I came to my senses,  I could smell pine and taste dust. I was lying on my back, the four-wheeler was under the deck a couple feet ahead of me. I pulled off what was left of my helmet and realized that the destroyed piece of plastic could have been my head! I sat there stunned as I looked at the gaping hole in the deck. I was scared from the near death experience and terrified to tell dad what I had done. The damage looked bad.  I got an awful feeling in my gut, adding to the pain of my pounding headache as I looked at the hole in the deck. After some time I finally accepted there was nothing else I could do except tell dad. I got the four-wheeler, which I noticed had surprisingly no damage done to it, and rolled  it to where Dad was. Dad was cutting boards, as usual, for some project on the house. (My Dad can fix just about anything and he's been remodeling the house for years now). I waited for the roar of his saw to subside before telling him. I told him about it, thinking he would start yelling, but something worse happened. He didn't get mad at all. Not just that, but he showed no emotion. After I was done stammering through the story, he decided this could be a perfect learning experience for me.

“Fix it,” he said evenly. “And while you’re at it, there's another part of the deck that could use some fixing too.”
“H-h-how?” I stammered.

“Get your wallet.” he replied. “We’re going to the store,”.

I complied, and with a feeling of dread growing in my stomach, we were off to the lumber yard.

When we arrived, we quickly found all of the supplies needed for the repair. In total, it was going to cost me forty dollars! That might not seem like a lot right now, but back then it was the equivalent of millions. To top it all off, the clerk at the lumber yard was my bus driver, who had never liked me. When she heard why I was paying for it all, she just gave me a crooked smiled, and said “good.” After that, I needed to set up a place to stain the siding. Still to this day I remember the pungent smell of stain and the burning feeling I got in my eyes. After hours of staining in the hot sun (I didn't have the sense to put my work station in the shade) I was finally finished staining. I tore out the remaining pieces of siding, and, using a staple gun, I finally fixed the deck. As I put in the last staple,  I stood up, stretching the kinks out of my back. As I looked at the new siding, even though it was hard work, cost me a lot of money, and I almost got killed creating the hole,  I felt proud. The fix looked good and it was a nice evening outside with a gorgeously colored sunset. Dad even came out to take a look at it. He complimented me on how good my fix looked. That's when he looked at the rest of the deck and said, “ You know the rest of the deck could use a new coat of stain too.” He then looked at me expectantly. Pretending I didn’t understand what he was getting at I replied, “ I don't know, you're pretty busy already Dad.” He chuckled and as he turned to walk away he said, “ I know someone who has all kinds of time.” Thinking it unwise to respond I decided to just watch the sunset the rest of the evening.