Up until my mid-sixties, I'd regularly clean out the gutters
in the house we had in a town located near the North Carolina coast.
It wasn't to lower the rent or to curry favor with the
landlord.
No, it's just that I've always liked climbing up to the roof
and spending time doing a chore we could easily have farmed out.
My first exposure to that kind of experience occurred when I
was 10 years old, and just to see if it could be done, I scrambled atop the
garage located behind the upstairs/downstairs duplex. Nothing too special about
that, as it was only maybe 15 feet from the ground.
The exact reason why I decided to jump from the roof to the
driveway has been lost to the passage of time and a sense that a stunt like
that was just plain stupid, as it forced an unscheduled trip to the dentist's
office for an after-hours repair of a chipped front tooth.
I wish I could assign a bit of blame to a friend or perhaps
pin it on my sister or brother, egging me on, but it was just me, alone, up in
the air, taking a silly chance to see how it felt taking the plunge.
The next step up in my reaching for the stars campaign
didn't involve roofs but trees. The family had moved across town to a split-level that had six floors and a corner location that would be home until I left
for college eight years later.
The backyard was an arboreal delight with tall oak trees, a
stand of pines and enough open space to serve as a Wiffle ball diamond, which
would, over time, be the site of some memorable games including a Home Run
Derby marathon that lasted all summer.
My brother, in particular, excelled in his pursuit of
becoming what he called “The Perfect Plastic,” his spin on “The Splendid
Splinter,” which was the moniker of all-timer Ted Williams.
But tree climbing was my singular specialty, a skill I
honed year round, though in the winter I eased up a bit, knowing how Mom
worried every time she saw me begin another ascent.
After a while I branched out, so to speak, learning how to
traverse the distance between side-by-side trees, a thrilling exercise in
preadolescent daring that took place 40 feet in the sky. You had to be careful,
though, because one small slip and you'd face plant, something to be greatly
avoided to spare my mother's heart.
There was something quite peaceful about spending time up
there, something almost spiritual, not necessarily theological, but infused
with the kind of celestial wonder usually reserved for Sunday Mass.
Which brings us back to roof climbing, the ideal combination
of exploration and experimentation. Like so many things you discover on your
own, it was an accidental combination of timing and solving a problem in a way
that made the most sense.
Every spring Dad would bring up the picnic table, which he
placed on the concrete patio, where it stayed until Labor Day.
After the family became fond of playing Ping-Pong at the
Indian Lake resort, he fashioned a makeshift playing surface, which could be
attached to the picnic table with a series of wing nuts and braces, a very
smart way to give us all another competitive outlet.
One evening, then, after a fantastic Memorial Day cookout,
we started an impromptu table tennis tournament, best two out of three to 21
points, winning by two. At some point an errant return found its way into the
gutter, a place unreachable by normal means.
That was the first time I climbed to the roof, using a
wooden fence that bordered the patio, meant to block the sun's glare as it set.
It wasn't much of a challenge, but once I got good at that,
the rest of the roof, with its eaves and shifting angles of difficulty, opened
itself to me as a vast, unexplored terrain, one I quickly loved.
My favorite activity up there was getting my summer tan.
I'd always been on the painfully skinny side of the
body-type scale, which made me rather self-conscious about tanning in public
places like lakes and swimming pools. The roof was a perfectly private refuge,
one I used quite often in my early teens.
It was easy enough to fashion a tote bag using a beach towel, and that made it possible to pack up the transistor radio, a paperback book,
two bottles of pop and a container of Coppertone. Up there, all by myself, the
world felt a long way away, just a rumor of reality, a chimera, a transitory
place from which to escape.
Over the years I grew very fond of spending time up there,
sometimes just walking from one vista to another, opening my eyes and mind to
all the area had to offer, which was nice.
When you're young, your mind is still very sponge-like,
absorbing data at breakneck speed, making new inroads of adventure and
discovery. That was my rooftop experience, always seeking, looking for
something new and exciting, CKLW providing the summer soundtrack, making the
music all the more important.
Years and years later, after I'd moved back into the family
home at Dad's request, he decided to sell it, which gave me one last chance to
say a proper goodbye.
Using the same route I'd used hundreds of times in the past,
I stood up there and surveyed my surroundings, basking in the glow of memories
so thick I had to brush them aside, smiling and all alone.
Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to join him on his Facebook page, where discoveries are always welcome.
