My lanyard for raising the colors on the flag pole out front had shredded and come apart. I had some shredded line on the pulley up top jammed and I had to get up top to get it. Out back the bride and I had to get the roof off the gazebo and the carpet rolled up and stored. Heavy snow on the gazebo roof would destroy it and winter is coming.
The first job was for me to go up the aluminum extension ladder at the flag pole while the teen bride spotted the ladder for me. Up top I would need to grab flag pole and keep going. I had done this pole climbing many times before for painting and I installed that pulley more than 30 years ago but I wasn't close to 70 years old then.
I was one step from grabbing the pulley and holding on to flag pole more than 20 feet in the air when I thought about lying in a hospital bed all busted up. The wife cried out, "Stop, Larry!". I came down the ladder slowly with the wife guiding my feet with a hand to make sure I got onto the ladder steps OK. I worked out a jury rig with a broomstick and an extension to unhook the pulley so I wouldn't have to climb so high and it worked. I can do the same to get it up top the flag pole with new line without getting so far off the ground. I stopped going up and trimming trees with a chainsaw at the age of 53 and now at the age of 69 I'm starting to think my days of going up flag poles are over as well. Lordy, I was a monster that could do anything with my body as a teen Marine but I suppose that more than half a century after that time has slowed me down a little bit and made me not as sharp physically.
Anyway, the wife and I got the gazebo roof down and stored away. And nobody had to do anything beyond getting on the first step of a stepladder.
