High Places 171010

When I was a kid, I loved high places. Our home was a two-story with gables that opened onto the roof. Summer nights I would go out my bedroom window and climb to the peak of the roof and sit there as I looked out at all the lights. We were on a hill so I could see a long way from that roof.

There was a tree by our garage I could climb and get onto the roof just to be up high. After watching a few army movies with paratroopers I decided to go up on the garage roof with an umbrella and use it as a parachute. You can guess how badly that went. Behind that garage there were six plumb trees. I would climb up into them and eat those sour plums before they were ripe. I suppose they gave me a bellyache and the trees were all cut down, but the stumps were still there. My father put a basketball goal on that side of the garage and by that time I was into that sport. The problem was the overhang of the garage had nails through the boards under the shingles and when the ball would bounce off the rim of the basket the ball would hit the nails and pop the ball. Dribbling the ball was also difficult because when it hit a stump there was no telling where it would fly back.

The last year on the farm in Ash Grove Rhett and I replaced the roof on the house and by the time we were through about 90% of the job, I had developed vertigo, I cannot get on a roof or even look over a bridge anymore. When Joyce and I go to the fitness center I cannot even look over the steps on the upper floor because I just want to dive over when I look down. I do not have a death wish, but looking down from any height just makes me crazy.