Sibling stories-- The Rope

It's a beautiful day outside. In HERE, it sucks, but out THERE, it's gorgeous. It's about 75, and slightly breezy. Reminds me of when I was a kid...

Down the street from us, was this house that stood on stilts. Thinking back, as a grown-up, I know that the house was on stilts because the jackasses built it in a flood zone. As a child, I thought the house was on stilts because the people were really, really cool. Funny how your perceptions change as you age...

Behind the stilt-house was a winding creek. It could flood pretty bad back there, so you could see where the ground had been eroded away from past floods/rushing water. There was a huge tree back there, and its roots were exposed and crawling down towards the wet ground. The tree had a rope tied to one of its branches. The rope was most likely used to swing out over the creek water and let go--plunging into the bacteria-infested, muddy creek. However, being a particularly dry summer, the creek had dwindled down to nothing more than a squirmy worm of run-off from the nearby road. Since the rope swing had no creek to actually swing into anymore, it swung off over a dry creekbed, rocks, and tree roots. A rotting rope, rocks, debris, and a dry creek bed...what more do kids need? It was like paradise.

If we weren't at Devil's Drop, we were at "The Rope." We would grab the knotted end, run, leap off the dropoff, and swing wildly over the rocky terrain--screaming our heads off and nearly killing ourselves with stupidity. Because that's what kids do. I had a best friend back then--her name was Brandee. Brandee was one of the "special friends" that we inducted into the Society of The Rope. Not everyone was invited, because, hell, we didn't want anyone else finding out about that place. But Brandee was invited. Of course, if she would have told anyone we would have killed her, but that's beside the point. The Rope kicked ass, and we knew it.

I'm trying hard to remember exactly what happened...but my memory is foggy. Either from how hard I hit my head, or from laughing my ass clear off. All I know, is that we decided that everybody should swing on the rope together. At the same time. Over the vast wasteland of dry creekbed.
Me, Shawn, Shannon, and Brandee all hung onto the rope. I was on first, then I think Shannon, then Brandee, then Shawn was hanging on to Brandee's feet. It was like a whitetrash Cirque du Soliel--a couple of kids on a rope, swinging over a creek. Yee haw. Everything was going great, then it happened. Brandee pee'd her pants. As the pee started running down Shawn's arms, the screams started, then the "shaking off" of the pee. Next thing you know, we're all falling down through the open air, onto the rocky ground below. Thank God we didn't break anything. We all had the wind knocked out of us, but were still laughing like fools. Young fools. Covered in pee.

edited to add: Thanks to Shannon, for straightening out my memory.