We've been working on the patio this week, in anticipation of rain tomorrow (I'll see it when it gets here.) The kids are helping, too - hauling gravel, handing me stones, wandering off to roll down the hill. ;o)
I don't remember helping with most the hundreds, thousands of home improvement jobs that happened when I was younger. I'm sure we were all expected to help, I just don't remember much. Two, though, I do remember.
The house we lived in was old, built in the middle of the 1800s. My dad didn't have a whole lot or interest in preserving historical integrity, he wanted big windows, fewer doors, more insulation, less upkeep. One of the jobs I remember is the removal of the front door, replaced by a vast expanse of aluminum siding. My job was to pick up nails - buckets and buckets of square cut, hand made iron nails. I assume they went out in the trash.
The only other job I remember being a part of was shingling the roof. Seriously. Dad erected scaffolding across the front of the two storey house, and put on a new roof. Not remarkable except for the fact that I distinctly remember being up there on the roof often. Harness? Naaa.. I remember my sister and brothers up there too, and since I know how to put on shingles, I can only assume I was up there to help. I can maybe see having the older boys (12 and 14) help, but who lets a 10 year old girl (and her 7 and 9 year old siblings) up on the roof?!
3 comments:
My grandparents had an antebellum house too, and I have queasy memories of some of the "improvements" my DGF did to that house. I don't even wanna talk about the aluminum paint he used on the exterior at some point (for insulating qualities--NOT). We grew up in a world without car seatbelts--what's a little climb on the roof every decade or so?
We used to do all kinds of stuff when we were tiny. Like riding down the highway sitting on the edges of the bed of a pick-up truck.
Pigley, I remember riding on the the tailgate of a pick-up after I was grown and married.LOL (I am 51)
And Dorothy, I am often amazed at the stuff I used to do and my mom not think a thing about it. I grew up raising tobacco--I know--YUK! I honestly don't know how anyone that ever messed with raising it could ever smoke/chew it.
Anyway, climbed around in the barn all the time. Tobacco was hung on tier poles, all the way to the roof. I was not big enough to actually hang it, but I have sure climbed to get it down when it was lighter in weight among other things.
And I remember walking along one of the 2 x 6's that the walls were nailed to--up at least a good 15 or 16 feet from the ground. That just for fun. I could no more watch my kids do that than I could fly.
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