Pete, you did an excellent job on Chapter Eight of Cousins. Although the names, places, situation has changed, it brought me right back to the event as it actually occurred. The ending brought me back to a vivid mental image of the dam-breaking. Although there was actually no swimming in the hole after the dam broke, your description of Doug’s necked body diving into the muck and the mire certainly vividly illustrated the consequences to the stream from the entire project. Just think, if Dad decided to do that project today, it would take five years and forty engineers to get the environmental impact statement ready and approved, if ever. It is no wonder that farming and industry, especially the chemical industry, in this country is running from these shores with mach-3 speed.

I suggest that you write a sequel, perhaps in the form of Chapter Nine, where you tell about the rebuilding of the swimming hole and the dam the following summer because it was rebuilt once. You may not remember the rebuilt one because you may have left home for the Air Force by then, but take that writer license in hand and wing it.