What are some of your best memories roofing with your dad or just learning in the early years?

wywoody Said: My Dad never had anything to do with roofing. For most of my youth he was a service engineer for Joy, a manufacturer of mining and construction equipment. I never liked working with him, it always made me feel subjugated compared to doing the job myself. But he instilled in me the importance and dignity that hard work can provide.

I later learned the story of why he stressed it so much. His father died from cancer when my Dad was 12. His mother married a guy that my Dad despised and moved to his house. My Dad, his twin brother and older brother stayed at the old homestead. Then his older brother got married and moved out. At 14 the twins were told if they could run the farm, they could stay there.

They raised the hay crop, when it came time to cut it, a problem developed. The implement they used to cut the hay needed to be sharpened on a grinding wheel powered by an old converted bicycle. When the guy doing the sharpening pushed too hard, the guy doing the pedaling would reach over and bop the sharpener on the head to ease up. But they didnt get it sharp enough to properly cut and neighbors had to come bail them out and they had to move out.

My Dad was stung by failing at farming at 14 because he didnt push himself hard enough. I dont think he ever let that happen again in his life.

Joy jackhammer compressors. Rented many of them back in the day.

My Dad never had anything to do with roofing. For most of my youth he was a service engineer for Joy, a manufacturer of mining and construction equipment. I never liked working with him, it always made me feel subjugated compared to doing the job myself. But he instilled in me the importance and dignity that hard work can provide.

I later learned the story of why he stressed it so much. His father died from cancer when my Dad was 12. His mother married a guy that my Dad despised and moved to his house. My Dad, his twin brother and older brother stayed at the old homestead. Then his older brother got married and moved out. At 14 the twins were told if they could run the farm, they could stay there.

They raised the hay crop, when it came time to cut it, a problem developed. The implement they used to cut the hay needed to be sharpened on a grinding wheel powered by an old converted bicycle. When the guy doing the sharpening pushed too hard, the guy doing the pedaling would reach over and "bop" the sharpener on the head to ease up. But they didn't get it sharp enough to properly cut and neighbors had to come bail them out and they had to move out.

My Dad was stung by failing at farming at 14 because he didn't push himself hard enough. I don't think he ever let that happen again in his life.

We have old home movies of me and my older brother working with my dad on the roof of the house they still live in in late 1956. I was a bit over 4 years old then, and I had been on the roof for a long time by that year. I will be 62 in July and I can say that I have been on the roofs for about 58 years now. Now they would call it child abuse, but back then, it was going to work. Hey, I guess it was child abuse back then too, but no one did anything about it. By the time I was 10, I was nailing as many shingles as the hired men we had.

My dad taught me economy of motion, which I had no clue about at that time.

He used to preach to never walk across that roof and go down the ladder empty-handed. There are things, tools, debris, that will need to go down the ladder at the end of the day, you might as well take some of it with you when you go down to go to lunch or for any other reason.

Back then in 1980 he was the largest installer of the GAF Mineral Shield system west of the Mississippi, according to GAF. When installing 43 lb Bird coated base sheet 2-ply in 1 gallon of cutback per ply, he expected the wandman (usually me) to be precise. There should be no puddles or build-ups of cutback and absolutely no voids. There should be no more than 1/2" excess cutback sprayed beyond the 2-ply line on the felt otherwise it'd get tracked across the roof. He expected you to master "feathering" the wand so that, not only were there no puddles, but the next pass coming back after feather, better be right where the next pass needed to be, which was precisely 1/2 overlapping the last path. Not 45 or 55%, but 50%. lol

To do all that required constant moving of the wand to get a sharp edge of cutback on the outside edge, or on the inside edge, because you couldn't do both. Resurfacing shingles? That requires manipulating the wand to get cutback on all 3 side of the water cutout lines so that granules would be stuck in all 3 with no shadows (see our old shingle resurfacing pic below...you literally could not tell it wasn't a new shingle roof).

Through his training, I could cut a line of cutback with the spraywand along a brick mortar joint in a wall that you would think was taped off. When spray cutback and granules.

My dad taught me to be better than just good enough. My son is the same way. Here is a spray foam roof we did Monday. The foam is as smooth as any I've ever seem.

First house I ever roofed was my parents. My brother, Dad and I did it together. He wasn't a roofer but he was a great engineer and a special person that knew how to work with his hands. Hot summer Delaware days. We had to stop roofing at about 11am in order to not have your feet burning through your shoes. Miss him a lot.

seen-it-all Said: Any truth to the father being the milkman rumors that have been going around for years twill59?

This is why I am little hesitant to say "My Dad was a milkman..."

But to answer your question, that'd be between him and his women....if there were any. I only saw him around my Mom and other guys. :)

"Most painful paddling I ever got was when he told me I was to old to paddle, and I was paddling him, because he had obviously failed in his job as a dad.... Long story."

Good enough. I get it. In fact, great..... ;)

I love my dad. Greatest man I've ever known. Hardest worker I've worked beside. Never paddled me without me having full understanding of why I was getting it, and never ended without being told I was loved. Most painful paddling I ever got was when he told me I was to old to paddle, and I was paddling him, because he had obviously failed in his job as a dad.... Long story.

Dad expected a lot. He was a real bugger to work for. Got fired a few times. Learned a lot from those firings.

We don't work the same, we don't do the same kind of roofing, things have changed a lot since then... but I couldn't have asked for a better dad, he didn't drink, cuss or fail to come home at night. He taught us to respect the woman beside us by leading through example. He didn't see a lot of baseball games, and as a kid, sitting beside the bathtub and washing his knee before dinner was the only real time we had. It was off to the office right after dinner. I don't often live his example of work these days, but he did, and continues to at 73, show me what a man can get done in a day when he puts his mind to it. He was a tough taskmaster and I am darn thankful that we as hard as he was.

About the time I was 7 or 8 we started doing break metal for the next day's job together. I wasn't of much help on the shear or lifting the break arm, but the extra set of hands were helpful in lining up breaks and I had just enough ass to set the lock arm. Good times they was.

Any truth to the father being the milkman rumors that have been going around for years twill59?

My sister-in-laws husband delivered milk for years. When the 5th (unexpected) child was confirmed she said to the Dr. "I'm going to have to kick the milkman out of my bed so this doesn't happen again" He was a bit flustered until she explained the connection.

My older brother and I took turns going on the milk route with my dad up until 1968.

Comic books. Candy. AM Radio (talk about MUSIC!) Dad would disappear into the bar for a couple of hours, but always bring a great all beef hamburger out to me sitting in the truck. YUMMY!

One of us would always go, no matter how cold or how early. I saw my 1st Packers game.... the Ice Bowl standing in a gas station watching it on a little 13" b/w TV set up on a shelf or refrigerator. I don't remember why we were out that day ( a sunday?) Someone needed milk I s'pose. Or Dad needed out of the house :blink:

I helped too. One time Dad dropped the hand cart on forehead. Talk about black, blue and swollen!

I started out as an employee for a company that manufactured and installed roof tile. I was first made foreman in late Spring and needed a helper. The secretary (the owners' daughter) asked me if I would consider hiring her boyfriend, a college student for his summer job.

I told her I would, you don't turn down the bosses daughter. When the guy shows up, it turns out I know him, although he didn't know me. He was a senior when I was a sophomore in high school. Our school was second in state at basketball and this guy was the star player. he was about 6'7". He was great at things like loading materials, not so good at moving over laid tile.

After he went back to school, his girlfriend tells me I was the best boss he ever worked for even though I made him work far harder than he ever had. He said he worked harder for me than any coach ever made him work even though I never yelled like the coaches. I just set the pace and he tried to keep up.

In my early 20's, after working a year or so, a gov't re-roof project had ended. Simply out of desperation for work, I landed my 1st roofing project, following a day of knocking on doors of homes in need of a new roof.

Started on the back as we had no idea of how to lay comp. shingles. By the time we got around to the front we had it figured out.

Landed a second re-roof project from that day of door-knocking. That job got us a compressor from Sears, and a Paslode staple gun.....I was off to the races....Never had to knock on a door thereafter.

When I was in school, I worked for my dad. In the winter time it was till midnight. Then I would go in the house and do my homework. Go to sleep, get up go to school, go to work, do homework....

Weekends were around the clock from one of my dad's dealers to another buying their furs.

There are two guys that I give credit to for molding me into a real roofer, they both rode my a** hard,For the first few months I answered to Little Son of a ****. After I got older and thought about it I contacted one of them(the other had passed away) and thanked him for what he had taught me, he laughed said he had taught alot of guys over the years to roof but that I was the first to call and say thank you.

Amen to that. I was fired three or four times. I would let my pride get in the way and work for someone else for a month or two and then we would make up.