Cliff Jumping



People used to jump off the cliffs and into the river near my old house. A couple people died because they were knocked unconscious when they hit the water and they drowned, so the park rangers began enforcing an obscure zoning ordinance that effectively banned cliff jumping. I was standing at the top of the cliff one afternoon, and a ranger was there letting people jump even though he wasn't supposed to. Then his cohort ranger showed up and shut us down. Some other guy who was jumping off the cliff lamented about, "The couple people who ruined it for all of us." I agreed with him at first, but then the ranger made a good point. He said the people who jumped off and died probably wouldn't have jumped if they'd known they were going to die. Good point. Better point I thought of later? "If everyone you knew was jumping off a cliff, would you do it, too?" Well, I guess for a bit, but then I'd come to my senses and stop.

No comments:

Post a Comment