On the Roof

I love roofing- I mean the act of actually laying shingles on a roof, not so much the material.  I haven't done it in years, but was thinking about it lately as I've been down and out with a terrible case of shingles for well over a week now.  This has been an odd malady, and one I've never had before, but it's been truly crippling.  My shingles outbreak happened on my face and scalp, and has somehow even manifested into a strange eye infection (I'm the current star of the optometrist's office with the "hey you've gotta come see this case..." condition).  Shingles is common in people over 60.  I am not over 60, and I would wish this on no one.  Anyway, after good care from my docs and my lovely family I'm finally on the upswing so that's encouraging.  However, I feel like a slug after not being able to run for this period of time, and am just itching to be back on the trails, even for just a few miles.  I know it will come soon though.

And then there's the other kind of shingles- the kind on the roof.  When I was living on the coast in MS and rebuilding homes after Katrina, roofing was always my favorite task.  As my operation grew larger, I wasn't able to do as much hands on work on the ground as I did in the beginning, but I remember still getting out from time to time to "slap a roof on."  Often it'd be a free Saturday afternoon or something, and I'd grab a buddy, load up the big truck with shingles, and head out to a nearby job site to slap a new roof on.  There was something really therapeutic about the rhythm of the pop, pop of the nail gun, and I loved the challenge of hauling shingles just as fast as I could up the ladder and to the peak of the roof over and over and over.  Baking on a tarry roof in that summer afternoon MS sun was somehow relaxing for me, and a break from the hubbub of running what had become a large operation day to day.  Anyway, while "shingles" to me right now equates to sickness, I know that as the itchy scabs fade and I'm back in the swing of life, the thought of shingles will once again put me up on a roof, happily sweating away.