Opinion: ‘The worst that could happen?’

Talk about it

From the sidewalk near the garage, it didn’t look very far from the edge of my snowcovered roof to the vent near the peak.

The vent pipe appeared to be covered with snow, and it occurred to me last Saturday afternoon that as long as I was out shoveling, I might as well drag a ladder out of the garage, crawl up on the roof and make sure the vent was venting.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” I asked myself.

It wasn’t as if I’d never been on the roof before. We’ve owned this place for most of four decades. I’ve scrambled all over the roof doing one chore or another. I remember once when I made my way to the peak of the house, shinnied out to the edge of the roof and unbolted a television antenna that was no longer needed. That was nearly four decades ago, too, but some things a person never forgets how to do.

Never forgets, perhaps, but perhaps grows too old to do. Crawling onto a snowcovered roof wasn’t one of them before last Saturday. It is now.

Surprisingly, I was able to position the ladder securely at the corner of the roof where the main house joins the addition. I took a test step or two, and there wasn’t even a tremor. It was as if the steps had been built with the house.

That may not have been a good thing, in hindsight. Had the ladder been the least bit wobbly, I’d probably have taken a step or two, decided I was a fool and retreated to the warmth of the front room to listen to Golden Oldies and watch the traffic go past on Capitol Avenue. Instead, I reached the roof and began to crawl up the incline toward the vent.

The snow on the roof was considerably deeper than it appeared from the ground, most of a foot, I guessed. The top few inches were powder, but the rest was firmly packed from the blizzard the previous weekend. I had to break a trail on hands and knees, and I was a couple of feet short of the vent pipe when my hands and knees began to slip.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” I asked myself again.

For some reason, I remembered my big sister asking that same question long ago when our little brother was worrying himself sick over stomach trouble. When my big sis, a nurse, asked the question, she answered it herself. The answer, it seemed, was that our little brother might have cancer and would have to have his stomach cut out and maybe a few other medical odds and ends done to him.

Thinking about that long-ago conversation, I began to picture myself sliding through the snow down the shingles, past the rain gutters and onto the sidewalk. Better if I hadn’t shoveled the sidewalk clear of snow before tackling the roof, I thought. Better if I could catch the gutter with one hand and swing myself away from the sidewalk into the pile of snow next to the house. Better if I hadn’t climbed onto the roof, I thought as I tried to dig my fingernails into the shingles in spite of the heavy winter gloves I wore.

I stopped slipping, caught my breath and considered my options. Keep moving, turn back or lie in the snow until Nancy realized I was missing and called the fire department. I didn’t like the idea of being rescued from my own roof. I also didn’t like the idea of retreating and trying to find another way to clear the snow from the pipe. Nothing for it but to move forward.

Spread-eagled in the snow, I made it. I cleared the snow from the vent and inched back to the ladder and down to the sidewalk, where I caught my breath and thought, “What a lame-brained thing for an old man to do.”

Next time I ask myself what’s the worst that could happen, I’ll work harder on the answer.

Terry Woster’s column is published Wednesdays and Saturdays in The Daily Republic.

Tags: terry woster, opinion, columns, updates