Tag Archives: ladders

The View

Knotty Problems

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My father-in-law asked me to repair some woodpecker damage on his house, which then led Nancy to expect me to repair the woodpecker damage I was trying to ignore on our own house. Ok, but not from a ladder.

I have a mixed tolerance for heights. I have comfortably rappelled from 100’ cliffs, a cherry-picker bucket, and a catwalk above the old Charlotte Coliseum (the first one). I have (not quite so comfortably) assembled, worked from, and disassembled multi-story scaffolding for the masonry outfit that employed me three summers in my late teens. None of the above held anything like the panic I feel on a 24’ extension ladder. On one recent task, my essential tremor, no doubt exacerbated by my nervousness, so shook my hand that I could not get the drill/driver bit anywhere near the target screw head. Nancy had to climb the ladder to do the job for me. Add in the number of friends and acquaintances injured by falls from ladders (one just days ago), plus the particular site difficulties below these woodpecker holes, and watch me head for the rental store. Scaffolding is cheap.

Both jobs are done now, and the scaffolding returned. I am relieved. This particular scaffolding experience was not without its nervous moments, and I am wondering if my tolerance for heights is declining with age. Am I ready to hire out future jobs? A more robust ladder (mine is a bottom of the line 200 pound rating) would not dance quite so wildly as I climbed, and might give a greater measure of confidence. But is this the point where I begin to think about the role of discretion in valor? Am I done with heights?

We had loaded the scaffolding into the truck for the return to the rental store, and I was tying everything in, when Nancy said, “You need to teach me that knot.”

The trucker’s hitch. It is a rare month when I do not find more than one use for the trucker’s hitch.

Many years ago, I bought a canoe from River Sports in Knoxville. They would not let me off the lot until I had demonstrated that I could tie the canoe safely onto my car. And “safely” meant multiple trucker’s hitches, tightly cinched down. That was, I believe, one of the more useful half-hours of my life.

I realize that knot-tying has gone out of fashion, as hardware substitutes for rope and knot. But hardware does not deliver the satisfaction of a well-tied tautline hitch or a bowline. Or a trucker’s hitch. If you know them, you are in select company.

Ah, the bowline! In my early twenties, I was privileged to be an Assistant Scoutmaster in a very active and rigorous troop. My own scouting days had been spent in a less-than-rigorous troop, and these kids taught me a lot. Including the bowline.

The bowline is a troublesome knot. It begins with a loop, and then you enter the loop, either from the back or the front, depending on which way you flipped the loop. To this day, I usually require more than one try to get it right. There is a mnemonic, “the squirrel comes out of the hole, around the tree, and back down into the hole,” that frankly never helped me one bit.

But, if you need to tie a bowline around your chest, as my climbing/rappelling young Scout charges often did, that’s a quick and simple, one-handed task. In the knot-tying relays, our troop always won. While the other troops were standing still, trying to figure out which way the squirrel was to come out of the hole, our boys were tying the bowline on the run, and our second leg of the relay was underway before the competition got the squirrel back into the hole.

I never learned splicing, and probably won’t. But my latest rope purchase came with some knot-tying instructions, including some I am not familiar with. Those instructions are here somewhere in my piling system. When they re-surface, I intend to learn some more knots.

Here’s one for the “If we can put a man on the moon …” category.

I am waiting for delivery of a replacement debit card. It has been in the mail for five business days. The bank will not get worried until two weeks have elapsed.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not a cheap shot at the postal service or government efficiency. Those guys work against great odds, including Congress and you and me. However, during this same interval, the same postal service both returned a disk to Netflix and delivered my next one. Two way service in three business days.

And it is not just the postal service. The bank took more than a week to get that card out the door and into the mail. My last electronic funds transfer took three days. Them’s mighty slow electrons, my friend.

Reminds me of when I worked for a well-known high-tech firm that did, among other things, large complex computer systems. Payday was one week after the end of the pay period. In order to get the payroll out in time, they required timecards two days BEFORE  the end of the time period. If your projected two days turned up surprises, you then filed an amended timecard on the first day of the next time period.

Apparently, that company is not alone. My all-time favorite Dilbert cartoon has him complaining about just that phenomenon, having to turn in his timecard before the end of the period. When the harassed secretary asks him how long he is going to continue bothering her, he replies, “According to my timecard, ten more minutes.”

The View

Advent, So Far

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We are a third of the way through December and halfway through Advent, and the fall leaf show keeps on coming. On this morning’s walk with Mona, I saw two different Japanese maples, only half denuded; their fallen drapery carpeting the ground underneath with the same scarlet as that remaining on their limbs. Farther down the street, bright yellow adorned a tree I cannot identify. Nor could the lady of the house, out retrieving her morning paper.

Apparently, we are not very social; the holiday busyness others brag/complain of has never afflicted us in past years. This year, however, is an exception, due mostly to music groups that Nancy has joined. Her community band is busy giving concerts in nursing homes, and another group performed two sing-along presentations of “The Messiah” this past weekend. Our Sunday morning ensemble also has new music to learn.

Nancy’s now the proud owner of full-sized concert bells, a beautiful instrument weighing nearly 40 pounds, which is lugged back and forth between home and church or home and band three or more times a week. Adding in the bass drum she also uses in the band, inventing schemes for transporting musical instruments has become a major part of our lives.

As to Christmas decoration, we traditionally tend toward the church calendar more than the secular one. That is, the decorations do not go up on Thanksgiving to be taken down on the 26th. Rather, we wait until closer to Christmas, and leave them up until Epiphany. The big star is the exception. We like to get it up early in Advent. This year, like our holiday busyness, our decorating schedule is topsy-turvy. Nancy was in the attic shortly after Thanksgiving, and dragged out the Christmas stuff while she was at the other task. So the tree, the lighted wreath adorning our dining room picture window (two-sided, so attractive from indoors or out), and the twinkle lights above the door went up early. But rainy weather prevented hanging the star, which still sits on the porch. I willingly procrastinate on that task; I hate ladders.

That star is a convex sheet metal construction, 36 inches point-to-point, mounted several inches in front of a larger plywood background. A light bulb is fixed in the concavity, so what is seen from the street is the white outline of the metal star. It is a fairly large device, hanging in the peak above the second story. Three years ago, a gust of wind lifted it off its hook. I found it the next morning, quivering above the point embedded in our son’s window ledge. Lethal when flying! So I added a safety screw, driven into the siding. Hanging it now requires two trips up the ladder; one with the star, the next with the drill-driver. Did I mention that I hate ladders?

I am writing this while sitting in the waiting room of Nancy’s doctor. Little more than a year ago, I accompanied her on these trips because she was nearly immobilized. Then came bi-lateral hip joint replacement, enabling her to return to gardening and hardscaping and other physical activity. Today, I am here in my role as sherpa for the musical instruments; her band is playing for hospital staff at lunchtime. In Nancy’s return to music, to painting, to health, we have much for which to be grateful.