Home | Literature

Letter to Sylvia
By: BG Stroup

Hi Sylvia

Yes, my dear, not only do I remember tin roofs, and hearing the rain drop on them. I had a personal experience with an old tin roof one time that most certainly did not fall into the "pleasant" category

There was an old man and woman that lived not too far from Lila and I after we married to what is now Pinion Park, which was out in the country then The old man was 93, and could remember broad street when it was dirt and they had street dances down town. He was a fine old man, and despite a somewhat misspent youth, was a Christian and he would spend hours writing out Christian stuff in longhand and then walk a long way and put them in mailboxes. I'm sure he didn't know it was against the law.

He was walking one day and I stopped and picked him up. He remarked that he had a tin roof on his house and part of it was coming loose. He said he had a good ladder but just couldn't get up there anymore.. Every time he met me he would get in a bit of witnessing about the Lord, and this was no exception. I sure wish I had paid more attention.

To cut to the chase, I show up at his little house with tin nails and a hammer. Of course he and his wife were so glad I had come. I wasn't so glad. The roof was tin all right but it had a very steep pitch to it and it was covered with pine needles. My confidence faded further when I saw that the edges of the roof were high. My heart really sank when he showed me that the piece of tin that had worked loose was at the very top of the slope. Of the roof.

When he reached under the house and pulled out an old home made ladder that had obviously seen better days. The rungs were flimsy, and I weighed way over 200 lbs.

Now let me tell you a difference between distance and height. When you are flying an airplane the space between you and the ground is just distance. Love to fly. However, I don’t like heights. When you climb a ladder or something like that you are dealing with height.

I put the ladder up and started climbing, being very careful to step on the rungs where they were nailed and to test each one.

Finally reached the top of the ladder and started to climb onto the roof. Panic time! But I managed to control it and I knew right off tat I wasn't going to be able to walk. I started out crawling, but when I slipped backward on some pine needles, what little confidence I had quickly left and I lay down flat on my belly and crawled, like some giant worm to get where I was going. I couldn't work though. Every time I tried to get my hammer and nails out of my pocket, I'd slip one way or the other and freeze to the spot. I finally decided that falling was as easy a way to go as any and actually did the work. That old tin was thick, so I won't bore you with the details of how long it took because of my shivering and shaking and with the taste of fear in my mouth.

When I finished and started to put my hammer in my jeans I slipped and slid down, flat on my belly and started sliding. In a split second I found myself frantically trying to swim up a tin roof. I thought for a while I was going to be able to stop. The, it came to me that I was not going to stop and the ground below was hard as a rock.

"Aire ye comin down" the old man called "Ah'll move the ladder ta thet side fer ye."

"I'm comin' down alright," I croaked. The when I knew I was at the edge, my left foot touched the ladder. I stopped but that ladder moved. Every time I'd move, so would the ladder. Finally the old man held the ladder and that was enough help for me to get onto the ladder after much time and some heart-stopping moments.

I drove home, with a shaky hand and a quivering foot. When I got home I ran over Tim's little gravel truck. What an ordeal. I went in the house and my wife asked me what was wrong. "I need a drink," was my reply.

It's odd, but hen I became a Christian years later, some of the things the old man said to me about salvation came back to me with crystal clarity.

As always

Your old friend
BG

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

Please Rate this Article

 

# of Ratings = 5 | Rating = 4.2/5

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Literature Articles Via RSS!
Additional Articles From - Home | Literature
Sign Up as an Author.
Submit Articles
Member Login
Top Authors
Most Popular Articles
Submission Guidelines
Ezine Notifications
Article RSS Feeds
New Stuff
Forum
Link to Us
Contact Us

Powered by Article Dashboard