By Jim Hagarty
1987
This weekend, weather permitting, I’ll be putting a new roof on the house.
I’ve never put a roof on a house owned by me before, so this is a big deal, requiring all of the usual amount of pre-big-deal fretting.
Therefore, the project actually got under way Tuesday night just after I went to bed. I slipped under the covers, turned off the light on the nighttable, stared at the ceiling and started looking at my roof.
Then and there, long after all the stores had closed and hours before they’d open again, I started ordering supplies.
By 12:30 a.m., I had rounded up most of the things I was going to need – shingles, vents, nails, tar, flashing, eaves starter, a roll of tarpaper and drinks for the men who were showing up to help.
That much accomplished, it was time for a break. I got up, went to the kitchen, ate an orange, returned to bed and went back to work.
By 1:30 a.m., after much tossing and turning, I had most of the old shingles torn off the roof and thrown on the ground below. Next came repairs to some of the boards under the shingles which had deteriorated in the 30 years since the house was built.
By 2:30 a.m., the new shingles were going on and vents were being installed. My helpers had shown up and things were really starting to move.
After another kitchen break for biscuits, cheese and orange juice, I climbed back into bed and started working on the garage roof. We encountered some problems there where the garage meets the main house but by 4 a.m., they were worked out.
About this time, I realized how ridiculous this was and decided I’d better get some sleep. But I was a man obsessed. So I tried a technique I’ve heard is effective in switching trains of thought by picturing some favourite, pleasant scene, which, if concentrated on long enough, will apparently displace obsessive thoughts and encourage sleep. Some happy moment from the past, perhaps, or a babbling brook trickling through a peaceful forest. Or, for lack of anything more original, sheep jumping over a rail fence.
To block out the roofing, I pictured a bright, sunny day 20 years ago on my family’s farm. It was hot, but nice. The kind of day when the country is the only place to live. Birds were chirping from the evergreens and cats were chasing mice in the long grass. Cattle were grazing in the orchard and the smell of newly mowed hay was intoxicating.
My father and brothers and some neighbour men were gathered there, down near the barnyard, ready for work of some sort. Hammers in hand, we started climbing ladders. It was soon apparent we were putting a new roof on the driving shed. And before long, we’d moved from the shed to the roof of my house and were happily shingling away.
I rolled over and tried again. This time, on another sunny day 30 years ago, I was at the one-room school I attended as a kid and it was recess. We were all running around, waving our arms screaming “My turn!” and “That’s not fair!” and generally having a good time. Soon, we were playing a favourite game – throwing a ball over the woodshed roof, which, I could see, was badly in need of repair. But first, we had to finish the roof on my house.
It was no use.
At 4:30 a.m., most of the lights in the house were on and I was sitting at my kitchen table with a building supply store’s catalogue and a calculator, going over figures. Figures are something a person can never go over too many times. About 5 o’clock, I went back to bed.
A short time later, in the middle of installing a vent on the north side of the house roof, I must have fallen asleep.
At 6:15, the alarm went off.
As I dragged myself out to the car on my way to work, I noticed that despite all of the hard labour of the night before, my roof wasn’t done.
But I was.
