Re: Would You Hire a White Guy as a Handyman?

"Islander" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:vpednSq2kqISxW3XnZ2dnUVZ_qidnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Rumpelstiltskin wrote:
On Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:59:02 -0800, Islander <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Rumpelstiltskin wrote:
<snip>


Since I'm the laziest person in creation myself, I don't understand how someone can be so busy yet be happy about it. I think I'm jealous!


Well, I discovered the luxury of a nap after lunch. That is something that I would never have allowed myself before, but it is wonderful!

Most of my professional life became more and more cerebral and doing physical things is easier. After I retired, I spent every day going to work, but it was work on our retirement home. I was learning a lot and the satisfaction of seeing my ideas take shape in something that we would be living in for many years was immensely rewarding. Some of it was really challenging like figuring out how to raise the central beam structure which consists of eight 24 ft poles interlaced with 6x12 beams. My son and I raised that part by hand. Fun!



Hmmm ... Fun for some, I guess. My foster-father built his
own house, a two story job with a cellar, though I'm sure he
had the cellar professionally dug out. He had help from a great-uncle of mine, but that was all, I think. I couldn't imagine tackling something like that. Watch out for those ladders. Ladders are a major cause of death for older guys who still think they're younger guys.
An aunt's husband, aged 80, died last year after falling off
a ladder. It was a real shame, because he was such a nice guy, and it's hard to imagine how my aunt gets along
without him because they were so close. She's in England
of course so I rarely see her. I need to bring up a ladder from the back "yard" to change the batteries in my smoke alarms now. My ceilings are too high to reach that far up just by standing
on a chair. I fell asleep while boiling noodles a couple of days ago, and was awakened by the smell of something burning, but the smoke alarm in the hall hadn't gone off. That smoke alarm is more of a "steam alarm" anyway, since it responds to the shower but not to a fire. I had taken the other, more effective,
smoke alarm in the front room down to change the batteries months ago, but hadn't put it back up. I couldn't find it at first when I looked for it, but it had fallen behind the piano so it was at floor level, which I guess is why it
didn't go off. When I went to the kitchen to turn off the heat under the noodles, which were burned to a charcoal
pancake that floated to the top some time after I put the pan in the sink and filled it with water. While I was in the kitchen, I heard somebody hollering from outside. I looked out the back window, and there was a fireman and firewoman across the fence in the next yard asking if I had a fire. I clued them in that it was just burning
noodles, no fire danger. Somebody in the neighborhood had smelled the smoke, which was mostly blowing out
the back window because that's the prevailing wind direction in my flat, and had called the fire department.
I always have a back window and a kitchen window
ajar, and two front windows at least partly open, and usually have another back window wide open too and often the back door ajar so the cat can get out into the back "yard", as I did that day, which is why I have a "prevailing wind". It's remarkable how many
little adventures I can get into while just huddled in my flat.


In building something like a house, there are many opportunities to hurt oneself. I entered into the project with the realization that if I cut corners on safety that the chances are that the project would not be completed. For me that was sufficient motivation to be very careful - OSHA would have been proud of me! Through the entire project there was only one serious mishap - I fell off the roof on the 2 story side! Fortunately there was scaffolding on that side and I only fell about 8 feet, but it was pretty scary!

I was running late in the year to be without a roof and had covered the sheathing with an enormous plastic tarp. The wind came up as it is prone to do here and the canvas was tearing, so I went up to fasten more battens to hold it down. It had started drizzling, so I didn't realize that the tarp had become slick as snot. In my hurry to batten down the tarp, I didn't bother with a safety line. Big mistake! My feet went out from under me and I started sliding down the roof, gaining speed as I went. I remember thinking that if I could catch a foot on a batten already fastened near the edge that I would be OK. It didn't even slow me down! The next thing I remember was landing on a cross brace in the scaffolding. It hurt like hell, but I held on because it was another 16 feet to the ground.

I was very fortunate to have not been more seriously hurt and I didn't tell my wife about it for months. Lots of bruises, but nothing broken.

Needless to say, I never went on the roof again without a safety line!



It hurts even to READ that! Oooh!

--

Evelyn

"Even as a mother protects with her life her only child, So with a boundless heart let one cherish all living beings." --Sutta Nipata 1.8

.

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