Scaffolding

It's nice when the scaffolding is properly tied off to the side of the house. Especially with the wind. I'm doing a house now that's, well, irregular. Boulders, slopes, decent roof pitches. You bet your life on these metal match sticks that someone else propped up, looking down three or more stories at the small rock shims that serve as your foundation. And then there's the scratchy wood plank, stretching 10 to 12 feet. You ignore the drop in your stomach as it sways and sags each time you cross. But sometimes the planks and poles aren't enough. You can't reach that peak to caulk the joints in the fascia, so you have to haul up your six or eight foot step ladder and try to balance it somewhere on the wobbly platform, usually with an inch or two margin, and then climb. It would be nice if people didn't care about voids, especially the ones you'll never see,  but they're there, and you do your best to fill them. It's here that you're grateful for a piece of twisted wire that's been looped around a cross-bar pole and nailed to the side of the house. Scaffolding tends to be top heavy, and you can enjoy the panoramic views a lot better knowing you're somewhat tied down.

A couple years ago, on another job, the GC didn't think he needed to enforce the straps, and so the whole structure tended to sway a bit more than was comfortable. And the stucco foreman, an arrogant white kid of about 22, thought it might score some points with the GC to grab hold of the base and shake the three story platforms with "all those Mexican stucco monkeys" who were applying the scratch coat. Just give 'em a good scare. I'm not sure why people try humor to form an alliance with someone they hardly know, and, as best as I could observe, the humor and the racist comments evaporated with the dust from the stucco hopper. In the end, no one fell off, the stucco guys finished the job with the foreman calling the shots from the ground, and we climbed the unstable structure and did our paint job a few weeks later.  So here, on this job, I'm grateful for wired ties.

I went 38 years assuming my structure was tied down properly. And by properly, I mean it passed code. There was a wedding ring on each of their fingers, which meant there was a wedding before I was born, and that meant there was a code that would be followed so the structures would withstand the wind and the shaking. And maybe it was solid. Maybe there's a lot I never saw or just assumed. Maybe I never felt the earthquakes. But they were surely there, because the house didn't last. I really thought it would. They went 45 years and then ended it. If there's damage from a storm, you've got to fix it. You can't keep shimming it up, hoping the upper rooms won't someday topple. Did they really try everything? Can the deep holes in two people ever be filled by each other? I've got my own life, and  it's good, it's pretty honest. I've got some fears, I'm over-sentimental, but I'm trying to stay connected with God and get less selfish. I always thought my life was good because of a strong family in the early years. But I'm in this in-between place. I don't know. I don't know if it was all a charade, or just partly, or not at all. I don't know if the scaffolding was ever properly tied down. The fact is that the house got built despite the code not lasting. I'm trying to be grateful for the good, and there was a lot of it. It's just that the memory is so tainted now. Were they unhappy back then but just faked it in front of my sister and me? Was there integrity in their marriage? I'm not hoping for or asking for perfection. I get that we're human. I just wonder how close they were or how far gone they were during the redwoods camping trips and the super-eight movies on the living room wall and the trak ball in the street. Did they stay together because of the kids, and what are you supposed to do with that? Is that supposed to make you feel worth it, or worthy? In some ways, the past really can be undone, or at least edited. Like walking back and forth on that sagging plank, I feel angry and then compassionate. They were an abused neglected daughter and an over-indulged son devoid of a father's adoration who stumbled on to each other and went for it. They built something pretty good, and it lasted a pretty long time. More than most. I just wish it could have gone a few more years. You think you're unaffected by things when you get older, but it's not that way. You're never unaffected. You move forward, you wonder at it all, you feel it sometimes. You get busy building and tying things down and making it as strong and lasting as you can.