My family had a genius for water sports

written by ric : this was dictated

In 1967. We had a family get-together. We all got together at this giant flume. That came down the hill. From the Columbia Water District. Umm, it comes from Grand Coulee Dam and flows into a couple of lakes. And then the water is distributed throughout Franklin County and parts of different counties around. This flume was about 100 feet wide and about 1000 yards up the hill. So we jumped in. Which we were definitely not supposed to do. It is off limits. But we could jump in there and walk up 1000 yards up the flume in our socks. We got really good gripping power with our socks. The water was about two inches high, so it was low, fast-flowing water. And at the very end of this canal. After you sit about 1000 feet or two, you come to a rope, and you have to catch that rope if you don't want to go over the falls.  The rope finally broke. My mom. Was the 1st to go over the falls that day, and the falls were pretty high. I used to say about uh. 20 feet high. So we shouted all the way up the flume. And finally, I got my older brother's attention. He came down as quickly as he could, and he went over the falls, and luckily, luckily, he didn't land on my mother. But he found her floating on her back. She was unhurt. But really, I was shocked and scared. So we had our fun that day and didn't come back again. Deemed it too dangerous, but I went out there the other day; the place had a 12-foot-high Fence with barbed wire on top of it. So there had been a couple of deaths out there, I believe. We floated most of the canals. In the Tri-Cities. This was called the Columbia Basin. And there were canals all over the place. So. We found one canal with its sand on the Other side. It was actually across the canal. So to