My favorite achievement, the babbling waterfall I worked so hard to revive at my grandparents. When I was younger I used to visit my grandparents a lot. It was during one of these visits, in the fall, that I saw it. It was perfect, not too wide, fast running, and a bit shallow. It was as if it was calling for something.

The only trouble was getting there. The woods were thin and reaching the stream’s edge was not the problem. The trouble was getting down. The riverbanks were almost vertical, and tall, too tall to jump. After some searching I found two main ways to get up and down. One was a smaller “tributary” that ran from the surface down to the bottom of the riverbed. A second was the roots of a tree, which could be used as steps.

After exploring the area, and finding many large rocks laying around, I returned to the house, where my dad was waiting to take us home. On the short, two-mile trip home, I asked him about the river and the giant rocks there. I knew there were too many rocks there for it to have been natural. I found that he had built a waterfall there when he was younger, and the only visible remnant of it was a giant rock in the center of the stream.
During my next few visits to my grandparents’, I began to search out the larger rocks and lay a line where I thought the fall should go. Construction proceeded slowly until, eventually, I could see rocks above the water level. After that, the work seemed to go much quicker.

Then something I knew would happen, and dreaded, came. It flooded. The river rose up to the tops of its 18-foot banks, spilling over the edges and onto the driveway, all throughout the woods. The water began to flow faster, and with the stronger current, came the chance of my dam being swept away. The river flowed fast for five days. Finally, we returned to my grandparents’ and the driveway was dry.

As I walked down to the river, I thought I could hear it babbling. As I neared, I knew it was still there for I could hear it. I soared with my achievement, and took pleasure in that sound of crashing water.

I still add rocks to the falls today. I have started a second fall about 30 feet behind the first. Now the sound, which can be heard from my grandparent’s deck, is a constant reminder of my childhood and its adventure.