Screw it, did it myself.

Busy day> My wife in her studio painting. A friend was over here remodeling our dining room...I figure today would be a good day to trim the tree and clean out the rain gutter> I made sure the ladder was firmly anchored so it would not slip...Friend came out to take a break and saw me up on the ladder. I told him not to tell my wife I was up there as she would not like it> Later when the three of us were in the kitchen having coffee...he asks me ...with wife listening of course... So, when can I tell her...in 20 years? I think she figured it out anyway as I was full of dead leaves and plant roots. Amazingly...none got in my hair though.

(Bald)

66 years old, both knees replaced 3 yrs ago
Reply to
philo
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Do you do new roofs, too? We need one soon. LOL

Reply to
Muggles

At one time, I loved going aloft on a swaying ship. I would have jumped at the chance to go aloft in a storm. In my late 30s, I suddenly became uneasy on roofs. My balance seemed fine on the ground, but I didn't trust it on a roof.

I'd anchor the base of a ladder in case I had trouble getting off or on at the top. I'd move slowly. If I had to go near an edge, I'd hold a rope.

One day when I was 60, 70 mph gusts came up, like a thunderstorm without thunder, clouds, or rain. I saw the gusts catch my singles at the gable and begin tearing them off wholesale.

Feeling an adrenaline surge, I threw up my ladder. I didn't bother to secure it because the gusts pushed it against the eave. It might shake, but I figured it would probably be there when I needed to come down.

I ran up the ladder with my hands full of shingles, nails, and a hammer. On the roof in the gusts, I felt as agile and confident as a young sailor in a storm.

Balance comes from three inputs: the inner ears, foot pressure, and vision. Contradictory inputs aboard ship can cause nausea. When you step onto a 6/12 hip roof, your brain must resolve seemingly contradictory inputs, and momentary confusion could be fatal. The reason I was so agile in the emergency was that adrenaline had increased respiration, which had reduced blood CO2, which had sped up my brain.

Normal people breathe faster in high places. My balance on roofs was dangerously slow because my respiration didn't usually increase. I wondered why.

Research showed that the respiration control in the brain normally changes CO2 levels several times in 24 hours, and that it's triggered by potassium. I read elsewhere that many people, especially some men, require far more than the RDA of potassium.

Potatoes and beans are much better sources than Gatorade. I began eating potato every morning and beans most evenings. One day I sawed limbs with an extension ladder and a 15-foot pole saw. I sawed the last ones from the roof. As soon as I stepped onto the sloped roof, I found myself breathing hard, as if I'd exerted myself climbing the ladder. That couldn't have been it. I'd been climbing that ladder and sawing for a couple of hours without breathing hard.

My respiration center was calling for a sudden reduction on CO2 because the situation challenged my balance. In a minute my breathing slowed and I felt great. I didn't need no stinking safety line to stand at the eave and reach out to saw.

I wouldn't have had to endure all those years of slow balance if somebody had told me to eat more beans like Donald Trump's daring Mexican window washers.

Reply to
J Burns

On Halloween with granddaughter wife noticed 81 year old neighbor was missing a tooth. When asked, he said he fell off the roof.

Another neighbor, 75, was killed by partially fallen tree he was chainsawing.

These are fun activities that I've given up.

Reply to
Frank

Gutter guards from Home Depot.

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Reply to
ItsJoanNotJoann

I'm 80 Been heating with wood since 1976. Still out there cutting but my " work" day is down to 3 or 4 hours. Ladders? I swore off of them a few yea rs ago but got my hat knocked off under a black walnut last week, out with ladder and up it with my top handle chainsaw. Cut branch leaving a stub, c ut stum and it nailed my nose and chin as it fell.

Knees? Nope but I did have both hips replaced about 15 years ago. Didn't slow me down except for the recovery period. From the stories I heard, I d o NOT

Reply to
Harry K

"work" day is down to 3 or 4 hours. Ladders? I swore off of them a few y ears ago but got my hat knocked off under a black walnut last week, out wit h ladder and up it with my top handle chainsaw. Cut branch leaving a stub, cut stum and it nailed my nose and chin as it fell.

t slow me down except for the recovery period. From the stories I heard, I do NOT

(added, hit send too soon) I do NOT want anything to do with knee replaceme nts :)

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

The one time I helped someone roof a house was a one-story ranch style.

Next roof here is going to be a "tear-off" so I better pus some money away fom it...will prob. need it within the next 5 years.

Reply to
philo

Some sailor I'd be/// got seasick crossing the English Channel

Reply to
philo

Friend of mine lost his 90 year old dad, because he fell off the roof.

After the roofers left...he just had to go up there to see what kind of a job they were doing.

Reply to
philo

When I was in the Army I took leave with a friend of mine to visit his grandfather in rural England.

He was about 80 and heated his house only with wood he cut himself.

Me and my buddy decided to help him and went at it with a 2 man saw.

He came over laughing and said we'd never get it cut that way and just did it himself.

Reply to
philo

Sometimes in stormy weather I'd do my best to look seasick so nobody would bother me when I took time off for a nap.

Reply to
J Burns

My one great grand father died at 93. The boy didn't show up to mow the lawn. Screw it, he said, and.... didn't live to tell.

Edwin Eugene Young, Cobelskill, NY.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Grandfather Eddie heated with wood. Ran out, one year. Sawed up and burned a player piano in the cellar.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

I put those gutter guards on some of my gutters. However, in some places the gutters were too much above or below the shingle edge to use them. Perhaps my gutters have too much slope but how do you deal with that situation?

Reply to
Ameri-Clean

I don't know, I didn't have that problem.

Reply to
ItsJoanNotJoann

Mine didn't actually fit under the shingles - they somehow clipped in at the facia board, and clipped over the rough where they were fastened with a screw every couple feet.

Reply to
clare

I was a Russian interpreter back in early 70s. Was sent TDY to a missile m onitoring ship for a cruies off Kamchatka to monitor Soviet ICBM tests. We boared in Hawaii, one of my crew members got seasick walking up the gangpl ank! Stayed in his bunk all the way to Alaska and down the island chain. F inally had to send him off in a helicopter.

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

I bought a old ramshackle ?house? that had an "antique" bedset, bed and dre sser, wife was enamored with it. It was in really horrible condition and w as obviously not "antique" at all, 40s or 50s vintage. When she became dis abled and in the nursing home, it disappeared in my stove.

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

Seasickness seems to come from conflicting balance signals. When your brain says, "To hell with it!" you've got sea legs. Ignorance is bliss.

My boat was built on the Great Lakes to maintain buoys and break ice, but admirals have a strange sense of humor. They'd kept her on the North Atlantic since 1943. In fair weather, we'd roll 30 degrees, like a

7-in-12 roof. For days on end, we'd roll 45 degrees. We wouldn't get any sleep. You might find a way to strap yourself into your bunk, but as soon as you drifted off, your head would start flopping.

Trying to balance was a waste of effort. Passageways had to be at least

4 feet wide. If they'd been narrower, we would have dragged along the sides when we tried to walk. They were wide enough to give us a good bounce when our shoulders hit the bulkheads. We'd carom down the hall not caring which way was up.

Before hitting port, we usually had a couple of days of placid water where the ship stayed pretty much upright so we could, like babies, learn to walk before going ashore. Once at St. Johns, the sea was fairly rough right up to the harbor entrance. I went to Woolworths. Out of the corner of my eye, I kept seeing merchandise falling and turning just in time to grab it. I felt like a bull in a china shop. Popeye didn't have his land legs yet.

When they wrote the song, "What Shall we do with the Drunken Sailor," maybe that sailor hadn't had a drink in weeks.

Reply to
J Burns

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