Bragging Rights at 46

Have to tell my story. I loaded 9 square of 50 yr. GAF Ultra HDtoday, one story in about 45 minutes....Man what happened to 25???Going to bed now. :blink:

twill59 Said: Tom Hay, said years ago, wait until you hit 50, youll slow. me being a Young Turk in my early 40s just laughed.

Well here I am, 55 and feeling the pain. Just got back from the Chiro.....just a tune up.

Im just an office worker now anyway....

I thought this was worth bringing back to life. I worked my butt off to end up being able to afford a lot of things.

There is not a price I would not pay for a better back so the true meaning is I did a lot of stupid things for nothing.

Please do not take me wrong, lot of happiness. The straw that broke the Camels back was doing things when I didn't let the healing process work.

Learn from ALL of us that made these mistakes. OSHA is NOT the joke I thought it was.

Did Jack Legge change his name?

I once took six bundles of shingles up two small flights of stairs, By the time I got to the top of the second I just leaned forward and dropped them to the floor. My back felt like a wet noodle ready to snap! Oh the good ole days of testosterone and stupidity....... Kinda fun though :woohoo:

I've been married to the same woman for 26 years...................

In years past, I spent many hours standing on top of a stack of shingles that was in the bed of a pickup truck and backed up to the lowest point on the roof. At 6'4", I was always the guy designated to pass them up to the other guys on the roof. Human laddervator so to speak. I don't know how I avoided the bad back thing all these years. At least so far anyways. Knock on wood! :dry:

A crew I worked on in Georgia years ago that did all new construction, had a hungarian guy that loaded all the roofs. His legs were nearly as big around as my whole body. He would carry up FOUR bundles of 3-tabs at a time, step off the ladder and hump them to the ridge. Most of the roofs were 6/12. They paid him a whole dollar a square. :huh:

Sissies! :-)

My brother and I once unloaded a railcar of 1,100 GAF 100 lb bag of #93 white granules, by hand working straight through the night. We had 24 hours to get the railcar unloaded and off the siding. Our warehouse was an old packing plant with narrow halls - we had to unload the granules off the railcar into our dumptruck, drive to the warehouse, and carry them on our shoulder down 2 long narrow halls and stack them in an old meat locker room.

We started off cocky, sometimes showing off by carrying 2 bags at a time. That cockiness when away fast. That's 550 bag each of us carried. If memory serves, we were late getting it done but we worked sun up to sun down to past sun up.

And that's why I have a bad back.

Lord almighty. I carried a lot of shingles up ladders when I was younger, but now the thought of it makes me cringe!!

Yeah chuck up the ladder but first 50feet to the back yard. Okay I had a dolly for wheelin it to the backyard. This is a lower level in the back. Got about seven squares today in about four hours. Not tryin to kill myself anymore.

49 this year. I've stopped all the roofing installs, its way too hard !!!!

But, I'm still going toe to toe with pro boxers, mma fighters, run marathons, and party all the time.

I even drove by some roofers doing a new house, I looked at them and thought, "I can't believe I did that everyday!!"

I was in my mid 40's when I decided to reduce my monthly fixed overhead from just under $20k to about a tenth of that. Took me 2 years, but it sure freed me up to get old. ;)

Hit 50 this year and today im dragging ass to many long days and late nights but it wont stop I have to feed the machine!

At 60 I'm right there with the rest of you . . . often think I would give my eye teeth to have a nailer in my hand at 20. Wisdom has given way to testosterone . . . let the young bucks have at it. Hire the young, teach 'em well . . .

I noticed "the wall" about the time the mid 40's arrived. Just seemed to take a whole lot more push to get any thing done and survive the day. Still stand amazed at my grandfather who could out produce me roofing a dairy barn when he was in his 60's and I was in college. The older I get, the more convinced I become that day in / day out efficiency and economy of motion trumps youth and scattered effort . . . to a point.

It's a tortoise/hare type of philosophy, coupled with a dose of reality.

That Tom Hay guy is missed here as well.

Tom Hay, said years ago, wait until you hit 50, you'll slow. me being a Young Turk in my early 40's just laughed.

Well here I am, 55 and feeling the pain. Just got back from the Chiro.....just a tune up.

I'm just an office worker now anyway....

Something MikeH said years ago,"sometimes you just have to suck it up to show the guys you still can do it and suffer later". He was talking about laying torchdown.

I'm tired just thinking about it. LOL