I Ain't as Good as I Once Was. But It's Because I'm Dumber Not Weaker.
Posted: Monday, July 20, 2009
by Mike Fak
http://mikefak.com
The last few storms through the area did some real damage to my roof. 70 mile-an-hour winds tore off shingles and of course they couldn't be easy ones to get to on a three-story home.
I knew I had lost a few shingles since they were lying in the driveway after the storms. I just didn't know yet that they were shingles, that now gone, would mean the ceiling in the attic would drip and then run down into our second floor living space. Shingles overlap and when one gets torn off there is still the overlap shingle. Except when the shingles in the driveway are the overlap ones which means my roof is exposed to the elements.
The house is 42 feet to the top and some of the missing shingles were right at the top. Couple that with the fact the roof as a sixty-degree angle and it is always a death defying act to get up there and stay up there. At sixty degrees you wouldn't slide off the roof, you would fall off and nothing would stop you except the driveway upon touchdown.
The job is tough and I have to go from the first floor to the second and then onto the third story roof. I have to nail in the ladder jacks and then climb up on the two by six boards and then nail another toe-hold until the entire travel up the roof is ready for climbing. Then there is the carting of hammer nails and shingles which makes getting to where the repair is needed almost harder than the roof repair.
My wife always moves the car out of our driveway when I have to do this. She doesn't want her baby damaged by something falling off the roof like a hammer or a shingle or me.
I did the job and got down safely and I got steaks that night as a reward. I still had to go to the other side the next day but that wasn't as hard since the angle was only 45 degrees and the built in gutter meant if I started sliding I would have a fail safe from just pitching into thin air and landing in the tomato patch below.
The next day I grabbed the forty foot ladder and dragged it to the back side of the house. The problem was the monster seemed heavier than before and after pushing and steering and trying to keep it from toppling over I finally got it rested against the house.
The ladder was at twenty feet and I needed to push up the secondary rung to thirty so it would reach over the top of the roof section I needed to work on.
But I couldn't do it.
The house is clapboard which means the ladder is stopped every four inches when it hits the bottom of a siding run. To make the ladder expand you have to hold it off the house and pull the extension up and then rest it back. For the life of me I couldn't do this.
Every time I pulled the ladder upright I almost lost the balance and that would mean a crashing ladder doing damage to power lines or house windows or my neighbor's back porch.
Finally I had to admit I just couldn't do it and allowed the ladder to plink on down the house and to the ground.
I was morose the entire day. I knew about six years ago I had gotten up on this hip section of the roof so it looked like I just didn't have the strength anymore. I tried to console myself by thinking that most sixty-one year olds couldn't have picked up that huge ladder let alone opened it in place but it was little help. I wasn't as good as I once was and that to me means you might as well send me to the glue factory.
That night in bed as I pondered my frailty it dawned on me how I previously extended that ladder over the gutter.
I had lifted it up and leaned it against the first floor roof so that I had help plus the ladder was in the air and the rungs could be easily extended. After I got it the right height I then slid it along the roof until it was where I needed it.
I was a man again. I never did get that ladder up the way I had tried on Sunday. I had used the house to help me and I had forgotten that.
So maybe I'm still as strong as I used to be. It's just that I'm a bit dumber.
This Article has been viewed 1,896 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Mike, I wish you would stay off that roof! When my husband gets on the ladder to climb to the roof I make threats, like "If you fall I'll never speak to you again!" (Some husbands would fall if such would come to pass as a reward uh result).Thanks J. I should stay off ladders and roofs but the day I can't do those things I do need to go to the glue factory.Mike
Hi Mike.My husband hates ladders! His palms would probably be sweating just reading your article. :) Our house is two stories on the back side and whenever he wants to clean the gutters or some such, I have to help him with the extension ladder. Then I stand and steady the thing for him. I doubt that I could help in any way if he decided to fall, but it makes him feel better. Oh! And he always relies on me to remember how we did it last time. So maybe it's not an age thing. Maybe it's a guy thing. :)Thanks for the entertainment,DianneHi Dianne. Yep someone at the bottom of a ladder only means you land on them when you fall off.Mike
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.