Not only was it 8 degrees, but the wind was blowing so hard I had to shut the damper in my stove pipe to keep the match from blowing out when I lit the stove. I don’t pay attention to the wind chill numbers they promote on the news but the wind made it a lot colder. The sparrows have puffed out their feathers and look twice their size. Not having access to Google they don’t know the temperature or the records but by all appearances they think its damned cold too. I hadn’t gotten my leather chopper mittens out, don’t know why, so when I went out to get more firewood that morning I put yellow cotton work gloves over the fingerless gloves I have on now as I type. My hands were still cold. As I type this morning the stove slowly warms me up, starting with my right shoulder and thigh. It’s a process.
Up in the garden my Brussels sprouts are frozen onto their stalks. I was hoping to make it till Thanksgiving to harvest those. Was that too much to ask? They seem to be better on the stalk and better yet after a few frosts. But this can’t be good for them. The positive spin is that they were organically grown and now they are organically frozen. I am pretty sure they are also gluten free. The downside is I’m going to have to get them into the freezer if the weather gets in the 40’s as it is supposed to this weekend so they don’t thaw and go mushy before next Thursday. It’s always something. But if it warms up I plan to do some roofing.
I’m trying to finish my woodshed roof but it’s too damn cold. I had all summer to do it and didn’t see the urgency. Thanks to help from my brother Denny and our friend Brice, I have the rafters up and the spaced 1x4’s which will hold the cedar shakes. Keith McConnoughhay is giving me both advice and material and I’m doing the work. It’s a shame to learn on the job during the probably one and only time I’ll ever shingle a roof, but that’s where I am. Once the roof is on I’m moving the eight of so pallets of oak wood now in the yard into the shed, splitting some of it before I stack it, so it can continue to dry and season. I have a lot to do before Thanksgiving.
We’re having the Flaherty family to dinner at our house on Thanksgiving Day, more than twenty of them. I ordered a turkey from Handy Foods, one of those raised up by Waterman and not injected with all the stuff. Think I’ll brine it before we roast it. I’m anxious to see everyone for the holiday. Beats getting together for funerals.
The day after Thanksgiving I’m driving to Florida, or starting out anyway. I haven’t picked a route. Instead I intend to back out of the garage, turn either right or left, up or down the hill (the only choices), and consult the road atlas once I’m out of town. My wife is flying down the next Monday, we’re staying with relatives in Tampa and Sarasota, then ending up in a house in St. Pete Beach for a week. I’m bringing the golf clubs and the car of course, so that we are mobile when we’re down there.
That, on the surface, is the official reason for my one way drive. (My wife is riding back with me.) Just beneath the surface though, this short solo trip represents my longing to travel by myself again, with no deadline, no itinerary, and no route. Just a departure point and a destination. No ETA. I expect to plug in the laptop and write along the way, posting blogs while I’m gone.
I had no idea I would want to escape the cold this much this early. It is hard to see the value of it. It is not a friendly thing, or a welcome guest, the cold. It stings my face. It seeps into my joints and pains me. My knees feel old. I run from that reality by imagining warmer times. That’s perhaps the biggest benefit of being human, having the ability to imagine better days instead of being trapped in the present.
I continue to feel out of touch with modern life. Like a Halloween Jack O’Lantern in November with a vague feeling his time has passed I consistently discover aspects of everyday life that date me. I went to Farm and Fleet, discovered that they do not sell wooden bushel baskets as I know them, and was further puzzled at the lack of shingling hatchets in the hand tool section. I always wanted a shingling hatchet though I had no use for one. Now I do.
I worked on a carpentry crew in the sixties building homes in new subdivisions in Bloomington Normal. The plumbers and electricians had the best pickup trucks and seemed the most calm and sedate of the tradesmen. The carpenters were somewhere in the middle of the continuum of trade union gentility while the roofers were the roughest and toughest, along with the painters. The roofers worked under the toughest conditions, in the sun, no hope of shade, carrying those shingles up the ladder on their shoulder. It was believed by those in the know that roofers drank the most, though there is no data that I can find on to support that theory. Anecdotally, in the bar after work with my bosses, they appeared to drink the most. They certainly drank the fastest. A roofer once told me why.
“Well, first you build up a powerful thirst up there in the sun. But also, if you get in here in the air conditioning and chug one or two cold beers real fast it makes you eyes water, which flushes all that asphalt shit from the shingles out of your eyes.” Oh, the excuses that abound for hard drinking.
It was the end of a brutally hot week in 1968 but us carpenters were under roof and shaded, finishing the last of the inside framing on a Hundman Home in Greenbriar subdivision, about to put the windows in their frames. The roofers had come as early as possible, at first light, so they could get off the roof before the heat of the afternoon set in. As we heard them pound nails above us we knew they were baking up there. The shingles were black. To do their work properly they sat on shingles just laid, wearing out the pockets of their jeans, which were streaked with tar. We sweat but they sweat more. We imagined their work as miserable.
I was outside gathering an armful of 2x4 studs from a stack in the yard when I heard an especially loud argument break out above me. I looked up, squinting into the sun, and saw a crew of roofers involved in what looked like a fight. I didn’t see any punches thrown but they were arranged in that challenging stance that people take when they are attacking or about to be attacked. In this case that tableau was set on a 4:12 pitch. Two men were the principal figures, the other two bystanders. I didn’t see any punches thrown. I imagined you could get knocked clean off a roof very easily in a fist fight at that angle. They were sparring verbally. It went something like this.
“Either you get your ass down there and bring up those shingles or I’ll fire you right now.”
“I been humping shingles for days and you don’t make no one else do it, especially your f***ing brother.”
I sensed favoritism based on family which I learned in later years was unfortunate, unwise, and not uncommon. Behind the boss the brother, I assumed, whom the boss couldn’t see, grinned broadly. That did not help the situation at all. The aggrieved party continued.
“So if you want more shingles have him do it” he said jabbing his finger violently at the smiling sibling “or get the god damned things yourself. And as for firing me don’t bother. I quit.”
The boss countered loudly. “I’m the boss of this crew and nobody quits when I’m firing them. Make no mistake about it asshole, you’re f***ing fired.”
It can be a fine line, the difference between quitting and getting fired, don’t you think? As he concluded that statement the boss picked up the young man’s shingling hatchet and threw it off the roof. It arced in the air, turning slowly, and landed not far from my feet. Neither of them noticed me. I put the lumber down and picked up the hatchet. It was a nice one, an Eastwing with a stacked leather handle, a leather thong you looped around your wrist, and the holes for pegs in the hatchet head. The deal with the pegs is that you can use the hatchet itself as a measuring device, bringing the peg to the edge of the shingle tab below, bringing the shingle above it down to meet the face of the hatchet, and defining the proper distance without a ruler. Slick.
“Now get the hell off my roof!”
The fired (recently resigned?) roofer was halfway down the ladder when he stopped and resumed yelling.
“You think you’re the only god damned roofing company in town needs roofers? I guarantee you I’ll be working tomorrow. And when I am I won’t be putting up with BASTARDS like you.”
He scurried off the ladder and began quickly walking to his car, a sad looking old Chevy. Being perhaps experienced in these matters he did glance over his shoulder to see if the boss was chasing him. Realizing he wasn’t, he slowed down. As he neared I extended the hatchet. I could see sweat drip from his face. He smelled bad. He took the hatchet and barely acknowledged me. As he passed by he turned and directed one more oath back at the roof.
“SONS OF BITCHES!”
Bastards and sons of bitches. With that he pretty much trashed his fellow roofers’ ancestry on both sides. I had a strong suspicion he had effectively burned a bridge there, and would never work for that roofing company again. At the same time given the explosion in construction in Bloomington Normal at that time, I had no doubt he would as he claimed find another job with no problem. After all, he had his own hatchet.
I was thinking of that hatchet when I was at Farm and Fleet. Not finding one, I consulted with one of the staff in the red shirts.
“A shingling hatchet?” He seemed confused. “Let’s look it up on the computer.”
I stood with him by a PC in the paint department as he scrolled down a screen. “Here it is. Discontinued. No longer carry it. Oh my.”
“Oh my?”
“It was discontinued in 2008.”
“No kidding? That was six years ago.”
“Well you know,” he explained, “roofers use air powered nailers these days. I’ll bet you they don’t use a hatchet and a nail on a single shingle.”
I did find a shingling hatchet, several in fact, at RB Lumber. They are the new place that opened up in Ottawa’s old K Mart. The guy behind the counter directed me to their tool aisle and there it was, the Eastwing shingling hatchet of my memory with the adjustable pegs and stacked leather handle. It was perhaps a little sleeker, a bit shinier, but it was basically the same hatchet I held in my hand that hot summer day 46 years ago. Trouble was, it cost $44. As much as I wanted it, I was only shingling a very small roof.
And so, although I coveted that nice shingling hatchet with the pegs I went with a single piece of cheap painted steel with a wooden handle. Probably made in China. It was $14.99. I don’t plan to make a career out of this. But I have to admit I wouldn’t mind being up on a hot roof in the summer right now, if only for a little while.
If I don’t write again before Thanksgiving have a good holiday with your family. And stay warm.
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