The Unseen Here and
Now . . .
Stuart
Revercomb
Stuart
Revercomb is a marketing consultant and joyously married father of four
children. He seems to remember someone once telling him he ought to be
a writer. "The Unseen Here and Now" -- Thursdays.
E-MAIL
Click
Here
to
subscribe to
"Thursday's Fare"
Dances With Angels
We all do stupid things.
Some more stupid than others.
My latest really stupid thing began as a really bright thing - at least it seemed that way at the time. I found myself at the top of a ladder perched about thirty feet above the ground. In my left hand was a heavy duty extension cord - in my right, a bale of colored Christmas lights. I had just completed wrapping the end of the extension cord around the top of the down spout on the corner of my house when it hit me. I was going to die doing this one day.
My wife had purchased these lights last year as an addition to the big colored bulbs that we always hung on our screen porch as well as the portico above the front door of our house. Now here I was getting ready to hang them again. Somewhere, the voice of reason or angels or something whispered, "If you do something twice, it becomes tradition - and you know how you are about tradition. In a few years you're going to find yourself thinking that you HAVE to hang the lights... and that your NOT TOO OLD to hang the lights... even though you REALLY ARE TOO OLD to hang the lights, and you're going to climb up here and the next thing you know you'll be headed for the ground and you will either die or spend so long in traction that you wish you had."
Somehow I knew the voice was right. I promptly disconnected the extension cord from the unstrung bale and dropped it to the ground. I carefully descended the steep ladder, thankful beyond measure that I wouldn't have to venture back up in a few weeks to take them down. But when I stood out in front of the house with just the other lights hung, things looked rather barren. "What will the children think?" I questioned. I knew the answer. They were going to plead endlessly that I put the lights back up there - unless I could put something else up in their place. I pondered a moment... "Hmm... Yes! That was it! And easy too!"
We have an Angel banner we hang every year from our flag pole, but this year I had hesitated to replace the stars and bars for obvious reasons. I could use the ladder to safely get on top of the portico, and then stand up to easily hang the banner beneath the top eve of the house. I had an old shop light that would clamp on to the top of the gutter for illumination. It would be perfect.
Twenty minutes later the plan was executed. I surveyed it a moment before showing the wife, who seemed to like it as much as I did. It really did look pretty good, and besides, I remarked, "there are some nice theological implications - the Angel heralding the good news up above with all the tacky lights that represent the commercialism of the season below..."
"Hadn't thought about that", she replied. "It does look nice though."
"Perfect", I thought as I placed the ladder alongside the house to be used again in a couple of weeks.
Only it wasn't quite perfect. A couple of hours later I noticed that a light breeze had flipped the Angel up on the roof. Her two feet that protruded slightly below the banner had become caught in the gutter. I hauled out the heavy ladder again and climbed back atop the portico. After contemplating several solutions I decided to weight the Angels feet with two, 1/4 pound lead fishing weights attached with safety pins. They would easily hold her down in the light breeze. But as I headed back down, I remember thinking that I would have to keep an eye on the weather forecast lest a strong wind come along and blow the Angel from her perch on high.
The best laid plans....
I did watch the weather forecast.
For about 2 days.
And the third day it hit - a Roanoke version of a Hatteras Noreaster. Except it wasn't exactly day. It was night. About 3:57 AM to be exact. I came out of bed as though shot from a cannon, which it seemed was exactly what someone was using to assault the front of our house.
"BAM, BAM, BAM... KA-BAM, BAM !! BAM,BAM,BAM,BAM,BAM,BAM,BAM!!!
Silence.
KER-WHACK!!! BAM! BAM! BAM!... BAM!!! The Angels lead tipped feet were dancing a jig upon the front of our house, and she wasn't stepping lightly.
It was 22 degrees outside. I was standing in our darkened hallway in my boxer shorts. The wind was howling - providing a wind chill of God only knows what. Could I leave her up there until morning? No way - it might be waking the neighbors up. From the sound inside our house it was waking people up downtown. Besides, there might not be any bricks left by morning. Somehow the wife and children were still sleeping. I threw on some jeans and a sweatshirt and dashed down the stairs.
The words, "you are such an idiot", began playing over in my head to the tune "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer."
Halfway down the steps, I envisioned one of the Angel's feet whipping in the wind and catching me on the side of the head as I attempted to take it down. The "Darwin Awards" came to mind - awards given out every year to people who manage to kill themselves in some exceedingly stupid way and who, it is implied, do us all a favor by not passing their genes along with the rest of the human race.
At the moment I was looking like a pretty good candidate.
I made my way out, barely managing to hold the door as the wind worked to wrench it from my hands. I struggled to close it and then headed down the steps. As soon as I came out from beneath the portico I looked up. Our Angel appeared to be holding on to the gutter for dear life - her feet performing an amazing staccato dance upon the bricks behind her. Fred Astaire would have been proud. No. Fred Astaire would have been in awe.
I zipped around the side of the house and retrieved the 40 foot aluminum extension ladder. Its amazing how quiet you can be with one of those things when your dignity is on the line. But the lanyards used to raise the upper section began to ping loudly against the rungs in the wind as I raised it against the house. I just knew my neighbor was going to show up with a camera any minute.
I was going to have to wrestle him for the film.
Securing the ladder I made my way up to the top edge of the portico. It was at this moment that I realized that I actually was in some peril. The wind was easily gusting over 35 miles per hour and those lead weights appeared to be traveling even faster as they reached the end of the flags reach and then randomly whipped about in every direction. BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM... KA-WHACK!!
"Better wait for a break in the wind", I thought.
Finally it came, and with all the skill of a mountain climber whose life depends on his next move, I scrambled up the portico roof and snatched the bar from which the Angel hung. She hugged me tightly in relief as the wind wrapped the material around the length of my body. We scrambled down the rooftop and then on to the ladder. It was quite the tango. She didn't let up until we had reached the ground. I was breathing very heavily. She on the other hand was remarkably peaceful.
"I am so sorry", I said.
"That's O.K. - thanks for coming to get me", she replied.
Inside the house everything seemed strangely silent. No wind - no horrific banging - no more hollow metal beating of the lanyards against the ladder rungs. I gently folded the Angel on the dining room table and returned to my bed. It was 4:15 AM. The whole rescue had taken less than 20 minutes. My mind stopped racing about an hour later... just after I had devised a way to tie the Angel's feet off with fishing line.
Good traditions get easier every year.