Saturday, December 16, 2006
I helped out at the veteran's house today. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, perfect for working on a roof.
There were like 15 men (mostly Viet Nam era ex-Marines), and me. I've worked with all-males groups before, and I know one small woman can crimp their style quite a lot. There's a tension, because they feel like they have to curb their language, and I could feel it there today. One guy was using a nail gun on the roof and it quit nailing, so he asked someone to check the compressor, and when that proved ok, he checked the gun and determined that there was a hole in the diaphragm, so there was no pressure. He looked up and asked in general, "So, what's it mean when there's a hole in my diaphragm?" Which question was met with an uncomfortable deadly silence. I knew it was up to me to loosen them up, so I shouted back, "It means you're really screwed!" They all laughed very loudly, and although they continued to watch their language (thank you, gentlemen), the tension was gone.
There were three major efforts - replacing a portion of the roof and reshingling the whole roof, replacing the ceilings inside, and clearing out the basement. My job was mostly clearing up. I gathered up old roof shingles that had been scraped to the ground, the wrappers and tapes from the new shingles, the old ceiling tiles, and junk the guys were removing from the basement, and put it all in the dumpster (which required climbing up and down on a stone wall). I also made several runs to the hardware store.
They knocked off when the light disappeared, at about 5 pm. At 6 pm, I was sitting on a Kingston city trolley bus taking a Rotary-sponsored tour of decorated houses. Very pretty. When the bus paused at an especially nice house, the driver honked the horn, and the homeowners came out onto the porch to wave and be waved at.
With all the bending and lifting today, and carrying and tossing heavy stuff, and then sitting for more than an hour on the slippery wooden seats of the trolley bus, I really thought my back would be hurting tonight. But it's not. It feels fine. My thighs know they've had a workout, but that actually feels good.
I'm going back tomorrow.
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