sweet winter memories

well, i expect it to snow anytime now, although i'm really hoping for a mild winter, the gas bills are killing us.

with winter comes very very fond memories of my polish father on the roof. we lived in the sticks, (and still do) which meant one very important thing---limited television reception.

we didn't have a satellite dish (i don't think that they were invented yet) and didn't have one of those fancy new fangled antennas that you could control from inside the house. instead, my father would climb onto the roof when the wind blew the antenna the wrong way. which was, pretty dangerous, but my mother didn't really care since they had good life insurance.

i remember one time in particular. my father had climbed the roof, and we had a human chain, so to speak, to tell him when the picture was clear. so it would go on down the line, "clear, clear....clear." but by the time it got to him, he'd already spun the antenna the wrong way.

i remember him on the roof for what seemed like forever. once the picture came in pretty good, and he got the relay message, (like a pollock olympic event, passing that freaking torch) we would shut the door, and wait for him to come in. well, this time, we didn't hear dad knocking at the door right away, rather, a desperate scraping on the roof, dragging across the whole vertical drop. plompfh. a huge cloud of snow seemed to travel upward.

my first instinct was to run, since i didn't want to see my dad bleeding out of his ears, with his head bent at a 90 degree angle. so, like the faithful family that we are, we'd debate as to who would go and check his vital signs.

the snow started moving, but it was blowing so hard, you couldn't see any blood. my mother ran to the picture window, and as soon as he started walking, she sat back down drinking her coffee and watching t.v. "oh, he's a tough guy. it wasn't that far down."

what? wasn't that far down? that's two floors, and you could just tell that he wasn't going to accept falling off of the roof, by the time it took him to resist. you could hear the scraping against the roof as he slid down. i don't think i'd go willing either. poor guy.

well, the t.v. antenna is pretty much just a lightning rod now, and he's got a satellite dish outside. but....you still have to go and sweep the snow off of it sometimes. at least he doesn't have to climb on top of the roof anymore.