MODEL ESSAY 1 FINAL

Life Event

Note how this student primarily stays with one afternoon, even though there is an
introduction and some reflections at the end? Try not to use this essay to outline your

childhood or six months or a relationship that went wrong over time. Try to describe one
event.

Dumb Luck or Just Dumb?

by Bill S.

There is almost no way to describe that summer that really changed me. I don't know how to
begin. It was the summer of 1999. My two friends and I decided that we would go up Mt. Lemmon
and camp out like stone age people for three weeks. Yeah.

TRANSITION: Beginning of real-time description of the event. All the rest is

part of a short camping trip.

We only picked up enough food and utensils for about a week. The monsoons were on
their way and my friends Joe and Tony were scared, but I wasn't. I told them that the weather man
had said we would be fine. Joe wasn't convinced. But then, Joe is my smart friend. Tall and with
a profile like Sherlock Holmes, Joe is great in tight spots and always thinks of a way out. Tony is a
big guy with curly blonde hair. He a basically good-natured clown, but no help in an emergency.
(Intros. with brief physical descriptions) I kept telling them that there would be no monsoon and
that there were no bears and they kept hearing bears all the time at night. It really isn't fun when people
let their imaginations run off with them that way I think. But, in my own case, I had a different kind of
fear and it certainly did come true too. I didn't think my old truck could last.

When we set out in my old junk chevy truck, we had a flat only two miles up the Mt. Lemmon
highway. I realized that we had left the car jack at home

Use real speech to add color to the tale!

"Way to go, Bill!" Joe crowed. I hate when my smartest friend sees me goof up that way.
"But we can just flag down the next car," Joe offered and he pulled off his red kerchief and began waving
frantically. This old guy with white hair who was delivering some lumber up the mountain pulled up and
asked what was wrong. He lent us his jack (as if that were the end of our bad luck.)

Can you believe it we also had our water boil dry or almost dry in the truck? As the steam leaked
out of our radiator, Joe went into a more ballet-like routine. But it took more than an hour to get another
driver to stop for us. The park ranger took pity on us, stopped, and gave us some water he kept in a gallon
jug in his truck. We are always going to carry a gallon or two of water from this day on. I made my buddies
swear that they would.

Tony just kept saying "I'm so hungry I could eat a moose!" Not that he had done all that much.
Joe and I did most of the flagging down. But our buddy Tony is usually hungry because he's such a big guy.
Joe finally told Tony, "If you just pipe down, I'll pay for your dinner at that lodge up on Mt. Lemmon."

"I thought we were not going to deal with civilization, this trip," Tony said. "But if you're paying
I'm not complaining!"

If you can believe all the bad luck we had, I have to state that this was not the end of it. Once we
got up the mountain and were ready to camp, we realized that we brought only half enough stakes for the
tent. But luckily Joe did have a little hatchet. Joe is the closest to prepared whenever we travel. We cut
some more stakes, which is probably illegal, from some trees but nobody caught us. That is when we settled
in for our first night and all the bogus bear sightings began. At about twelve, we awoke to low moans and
Tony thought this was a bear.

"I--I can't move!" Tony whispered. "I feel--like--paralyzed to the spot!" It turned out that Joe was
just having a bad dream. Early the next afternoon, we had our first downpour from the monsoon.

"Get the clothes off the ground! In the tent!" Joe yelled at Tony.

"I have 'em!" Tony answered and held the clothes over his head, then tripped into a mud puddle,
clothes and all. We were going to make Tony walk home after that, but he looked so sorry that we told him
we were just kidding.

The rain had come out of nowhere in about five minutes, had completely drenched us and washed
right through our tent. Can you believe that we picked the run-off for the hill we were on to pitch the tent?
We shortened our camping trip, after several more unexpected turns of fate.

As I think back on the "fun" of those two weeks, I have to admit that this is one trip that made me
into an adult. Was it really bad luck or do we make our own luck? I have to wonder at times.

A bit of wrap-up is fine. But sometimes the story is enough and readers get the point without the
philosophy at the end. Do you think this ending could have been left off?