Ladder Day Saint

I was up on a ladder the other day putting up an antenna on my house and started thinking about my Father. I will call him my ladder day Saint. I know the Mormons might not like my play on words but that is how I think of him whenever I get near a ladder. That is because of the caution I now use around ladders. I can't say that was always true but it is now.

I am not catholic but a Saint in my understanding is someone who is in heaven and has been proven to be able to get prayer answered by interceding with God. Saints have a proven closeness to God. For me my Father has saved me from several injuries, not by interceding with God but rather by providing examples of what not to do.

When I was about twelve (12) my brother and I got interested in short wave radio and we needed an antenna. In one corner of our large lot was a very large Cottonwood tree. We could put one end of an antenna high up into that tree. We had managed to nail board steps up the trunk of the tree sometime in the past. There were very few trees around that we hadn't climbed at one time or another. This was one of the tallest trees around. The only hard part of the climb was the first 10 feet. The problem then was where to put the other end of our antenna wire. On one side of the house a good hundred feet away was our basketball goal. This goal was home made with a plywood backboard mounted on a 12 foot 4x4.

I am not sure what his plan was but my dad had a 4x4 and he was going to extend the goal up higher with this new 4x4. We had, as I remember, an eight-foot wooden stepladder. Dad was climbing up the ladder with this 4x4. My brother and I were holding the ladder. In those days there were no signs that said, "This is not a step" on the top of wooden ladders. Dad got up pretty high holding the 4x4 when he suddenly lost his balance and fell from the ladder. He was lying on the ground in pain. Spittle was bubbling from his lips. It was very scary. My memory is blank after that. We must have gotten my Mom and she must have taken him to a doctor. As I recall he had a broken collar bone.

Later we got a long 4x4 and dug a hole and put up a pole separate from the basketball goal. We soon had our antenna up and working.

Saints are not born as Saints; they are humans who evolve into their Sainthood by working through various karma events in their lifetime. The story now switches to when I am an adult; I have a family and have just purchased a home on a hill in Walnut Creek, California. The house was at the top of the hill with a lower floor cut into the hill. Whenever it rained the down stairs rooms would get a flow of water. I worked to solve this problem. I built a French drain around the house to flow the ground water around the house to the back and down the hill. This didn't seem to help. The water continued to flow into the down stairs.

Then I noticed that one of the gutters in the front of the house was dumping most of its water off the roof right in front of the house. I had to put up new gutters to solve the problem. I checked around. I decided I could put up the vinyl snap together gutters all by myself. In the front of the house the gutters were about 9 feet off the ground. I worked my way across the front making sure the water would flow toward the side to be routed down to the back and down the hill.

By the time I got to the left side the ground started falling away. It was almost 11 feet to the gutters. I was using a light 4-foot aluminum stepladder. A stepladder is a ladder with four legs that is self-supporting and does not need to be leaned against a wall. I positioned my ladder firmly on all 4 legs and climbed up to work on the gutter supports. If I stood on the top of the ladder with my six-foot height and my arms over my head (4+6+2) it was very easy to work on the gutter supports. So there I was four feet up into the air with my arms up over my head, and suddenly something happened and the ladder went out from under me. It fell down hill and I felt my legs following the ladder and my body leveling out and I hit the ground flat out in a reclining position. "Bang", the breath was knocked out of me.

I lay there getting my breath and feeling very foolish. I scanned my body as I got up. There was no pain and no broken bones. I looked at my hands. There was a cut and a bad burn on one hand. I looked up. The telephone wire had been ripped from the side of the house. This was where the phone line attached to the house. In my attempt to keep from falling I had unconsciously grabbed the wire on the side of the house as I fell and ripped it right out of the fasteners. I had failed the first lesson from my father, "Don't stand high up on a step ladder especially with your hands over your head." I had survived the ladder incident with minimal harm and would live to climb another ladder on another day.

The next ladder event happened when I was not there so I can only tell the little I was told after it happened. My Dad was always a big help if one had a job that needed to be done. If you were moving he and Mom would show up and work long hours to help you get through the task. My brother had a home in Newark, California and was doing some work on the roof. Mom and Dad went to his house to help. Some how when he was up a ladder that was propped up against the house the bottom of the ladder slipped out and he was thrown to the ground. Gravity had done its trick again. I received a phone call that my Dad was in a hospital in Fremont, California with a broken pelvis. All I remember is being worried and my father saying, "They are giving me snake venom to thin my blood and keep me from having blood clots."

The lesson I learned, I thought, was, "Stay away from ladders." My Dad recovered slowly and I seldom went near a ladder. When I did need to climb a ladder, I made sure it was a good ladder that was well placed and I didn't climb too high. If I had to go up onto the roof, I would get someone to hold the ladder. I was never comfortable high up without someone to hold the ladder.

Over the years I got lax. I moved several times, changed wives, started new businesses, and worked long hours. Then I settled into a large Victorian house that had three units; one stacked one upon the other. It was a mess. The contractors worked on it, but to save money we did the inside painting. Ceilings were 11-12 feet high. I bought an 8-Fiberglasglass stepladder. It was an electrician's ladder. I also had a couple of old redwood ladders that had come with the house. One was a 7-foot leaning ladder whose top had been screwed to a four foot 2x4. I used to lean it on a wall and easily climb up and cut in the paint on the walls before I would roll the rest on using aextensionention to the roller. I would hang my bucket on a screw on the 2x4. For several months after my regular job I spent nights and weekends painting interiors.

I lived in this Victorian house for about 9 years. That's long enough for the outside paint job done by the contractor to begin to bubble and crack in places. So I began to scrape, sand, prime, and paint in the bad places. Remember this was a 3-story building each story about 12 feet above the other. In the back the area I was working on was the second story. Again, It was one of those houses built upon and into a hill so working on the back was working on the second story, but I was standing on the ground.

Finally my patching of the paint led me above the reach of the old 7-foot lean-to ladder. There was an area up around the roofline 12 feet up that needed work. The other inherited ladder that came with the house was half of an old redwood extension ladder. It was about 10 feet long with round rungs. It had set against the back fence for several years. I pulled that old extension ladder over and leaned it up against the back of the house and placed the two legs solidly on a concrete walk. The walk had a raised curb. The ladder wasn't going anyplace. I grabbed my scraper and sander and climbed up about 6 feet. That was just enough to reach the bad area. I began to work. I was busy scraping away when the rung I was standing on broke. I fell about a foot and my feet hit the rung below. Then that rung broke from 200 pounds falling on it from a foot above. I was going. Then my feet hit the third rung and for a second it held me. Then it just held me and I hadn't lost my balance. I was standing there four feet above the walk instead of 6 feet. I slowly let myself down. I set down my tools and went into the house. I came out with a handsaw and I proceeded to saw that ladder into burnable lengths. I had been saved again. I keep learning even if it is only a little bit at a time. My Saint is watching over me.