A Hammer, a Ladder and a Coupla Nails

I hadn’t even set my stuff down yet when I heard the mother from the next room: “We need to go help R,” she said. (R is the husband in the couple who live next door. They are a few years older than the mother. R has been battling cancer for quite some time. He’s a shadow of the robust guy he once was and now relies heavily on a cane.

I was almost afraid to ask why, but I needn’t have worried; the mother quickly answered the question without my asking. “The fascia on the front of the house is hanging off and he is having a fit,” she said. “I told him you could probably fix it.”

"I’m not sure why I was the candidate to repair it, but I agreed to change clothes and go look at it.

On Monday night, I’d borrowed an 8-foot stepladder from my neighbor since the mother has such a hard time using my 17-foot multi-extension Werner. Since the borrowed ladder was handy, I carted it over first. Its height was just enough to get me to one corner of the A-frame where one nail was in danger of popping free and where just a few feet above, the aluminum strip had been whipped out of place because the lefthand piece of the peak at the A was hanging free of the house, flapping in the breeze.

The 8-foot ladder would not reach the peak, so I had to fetch the Werner. Freeing the strip so that it could be tucked, then tapped, back into place. Including the time it took to get tools, hardware and to fetch and put away both ladders, the job took about 30 minutes.

It wasn’t tough. My neighbor was grateful. And I was relieved that it was something I actually could fix.