Each morning my neighbor and I look out to see who's up first. It's usually around 4-5 am. It's kind of like a game. She's 80, and I'm 58. We both have some things in common. One, she grew up in the house we're selling, we're both selling our houses now at the same time, both are independent and just plain workers, and we think alike.
So at 7 am I saw her out fiddling around in her yard. She was out picking weeds and branches in her yard getting ready for some drone and exterior photos getting done today for her upcoming listing. As we stood there we looked at the house and our eyes were drawn to the trees growing out of one of her chimneys. When I started to mention it she just said, "No". She knew where I was going.
How hard could it be? Dangerous, "C'mon Lynn". I was a fire Captain of a ladder company in the Newark Fire Department. I do, well did, ladders and roofs. When she asked, "Yeah, when was the last time you did that ?", I should have let that clicked in. Well, it had been a little bit, like 20 + years ago.
But then I thought back to the days of when I was young and spry-er. I don't have a fear of heights, and ladders are no problem, and roofs, no worries. When I decided to post this I thought of a screen grab from a video I had seen from way back in the old VHS tape recorder days. In those days guys would chase, or buff, fires and then put out videos for sale. In one of them there was a fire I had caught back around 1994 or 1995. So I found the image below.
I had just come in for my first of two 14 hour night shifts at the Rescue 1 firehouse on Mulberry Street in downtown Newark. I was young, the city was jumping as far as fire duty back then, and I was looking to go to fires for the next two nights. But as soon as I walked into the kitchen the guys spoke those horrible words, "Colin, you're next on detail, next door, Truck 1". Those words just take all of the wind out of your sails. It'll mean I'll be laying in bed for the next two nights listening to my boys going to fires and car accidents and trauma calls.
But as soon as I put my gear on the 100 foot ladder truck next door the bells started to dance. It was a full box and it was just a few blocks away. Rescue 1 pulled out of quarters from next door and my Captain radioed, "Rescue 1 to quarters we have heavy smoke in the area". And as we followed them down the block he followed that up with, "Rescue 1 to quarters we have a working fire". Now, there's nothing better then getting detailed and not missing work, and on this one we were first due.
While the engine companies put the fire out from the inside myself and Captain Billy Burkhardt went up to vent the roof. But first we had to vent the cupola, the peaked part of the roof that covered the bump-out on one corner of the building. This one was covered with slate so there was no where for the fire, heat, and smoke to vent from, so we had to do it off the ladder. I went up first with the Captain just a few rungs behind.
Usually you start from the highest point first but there was no way to get a purchase between the slates so I had to start at the bottom and start pulling, and with that came smoke, heat, and fire. A little wind blowing from the Ironbound section of the city put me square in the path of the venting fire, and in a quick swoosh, I paid for it. So let's just say I took a beating from the guys in the kitchen after the fire as I sat there with no eyebrows, no lashes, and singed hair around where my helmet sat on my head.
I've seen a lot of AI or ChatGPT work done lately of photos getting cleaned up so I thought I'd do the same with the video screen grab. While it's not exact, and more of a computer-based interpretation of the original image, it does do a good job cleaning it up. Surely it's not journalism in any way shape or form but it'll be good for the Grandkid's to see one day. You know, back when I was a contender.
So as I came up with a plan in my head I verbalized it to Lynn. Throw a couple of ladders, use the dormers as contact points, and hope the copper rain gutter catches me if I slide down. What could happen? So I went and got my ladders and clippers to make short work of the foliage coming from her chimney.
Lynn was outwardly opposed, but deep down inside I know she was all about it, maybe. She did go and call Theresa to explain what I was about to do and asked her to come over for moral
support. She couldn't bear to watch this alone as it all went down. Maybe she was thinking she'd need help picking my lifeless body out of the brush at the ground floor level. But up I went.
They stood and watched as I navigated my way along the rain gutter to where the dormer met the higher roof. I can say this, I might have been off on my roof pitch estimation from the ground. This was more of a 8 on 12 pitch which is more on the steeper side.
And the problem with that pitch is you can't walk the peak as your feet wouldn't be able to "bend" down on each side of the roof safely. So I had to get down and shimmy the 15 feet from where I got up on the peak over to the chimney, that with a small ladder in tow to get up on top of the masonry where the trees were rooted.
It was then I thought about my time in the trauma center at Capital Health. How many times did I say to myself, "What was this guy thinking?". Roofs and ladders and old men shouldn't go together. Now I'm not exactly old, and guys my age still are firemen and ironworkers and roofers, but the big difference is their bodies have muscle memory. They do this everyday. Let's just say I do not. So doing a split like Mary Lou Retton in the 1984 Olympics across the peak of a pitched roof isn't part of my everyday range of motion.
As I shimmied I thought of a guy I saw wheeled into the ED during this past springs rotation. He was 43 and he fell, out of his pick-up truck, and shattered his femur, the strongest bone in our body. What would I look like down on the ground after bouncing off the gutter and lower roof?
ChatGPT for the win
I finally got to the chimney and it was too high to just easily trim the trees. The ladder wouldn't work because the rung, if I balanced it on the peak, would be unsupported on each side due to the pitch of the roof on either side. But I was here, I had an audience, who had little to some faith
watching my every move, and failure was not an option. So I some how got my builtt-like-a-horse-frame up vertical and up on the peak where on my tippy toes I was able to find the brush with the
clippers blindsided. By then my hips were killing me, my legs, because I was wearing shorts, were chaffed from the old asphalt shingles, and my heart rate was about 150. But I got it done, now I had to get down safely, and I had to turn around, well, forget that. So I shimmied backwards.
Once down on that big solid copper rain gutter I hit the windows with some Windex before getting down to solid ground. "See Lynn, I told you, no big deal". I was thankful it was over and that Jesus was covering me with his blood, and I didn't spill any of mine.
Have you ever heard of the poor women who deliver 10+ pound babies vaginally? It's never good. If they're not "Tore up from the floor up", then they suffer from pelvic fractures during the delivery. This usually happens when gestational diabetes is missed and the infant grows way bigger then it should. Well, after this I felt like I popped out a 20-pounder.
So when I got home I took 600 of Ibuprofen and sat down, "Theresa, for just a few minutes". Well that turned into a 2 hour coma. Needless to say I've realized I'm not that guy anymore and it
only takes a second, and a misstep, to kill, either myself, or our plans for the future. Next time I'll leave it to the young kids or the professionals. But it was fun for a quick minute.