Going Up Top

THE GUY FROM the roofing company knocked on my door and said he'd like the opportunity to climb up on my roof. I didn't see the harm, and he seemed enthusiastic, so I let him. He got up there, and started pointing and counting, while I remained below, mildly bemused. When he climbed down he told me that I met the minimum of ten hail strikes per square foot of roof, or something like that, and that he would be happy to call my home owners insurance company, and arrange for a new roof. Why not, I replied? Sure enough, he got the whole thing approved, and we started choosing shingle colors. In his big book he had all kindsa shades of shingles, mostly varieties of black, but what caught my eye was the bright red variety, which I had never seen on any roof anywhere, and never thought I would, until now. It worked out great. In less than two days an industrous group of young Hispanic men transformed the top of my house into a bright red glittering panorama, and killed only one of my shrubs in so doing by tossing off old shingles, ableit my favorite shrub. It cost eight thousand dollars, my insurance company paid somewhat more than that, and I pocketed a few hundred for my trouble. One of my friends, himself a home builder and fixer upper, claims that all hail damage roof replacements are a scam, that hail never forced anyone to get a new roof; I don't know and I don't care. I don't ask questions when getting a good deal. Not long thereafter the bright red roof must have attracted the solar energy sales person who came by, stopped, and knocked. He and I agreed that several of those nice rectangular highly scientific looking solar energy panels would loook mighty fetching laying atop the red shingles. He looked around my front yard, noticed the half dozen forty foot oak trees shading my front yard south of the house, but was unfazed. We agreed that the twenty trees I had planted as saplings, which were now big and tall, in both my front and back yards would not block the sun, summer or winter, but that my neighbor's trees, on the east and west ends of the house, would. At my house, the sun doesn't rise above the trees until close to noon, and by four P.M., in the middle of summer, the sun is sinking behind my other neighbor's trees. There just isn't enough time in the day for direct sun on my roof to make solar energy work. That, plus my always cheap electric bill would make it a non winner financially to install solar. I don't want my neighbors to cut down their big beautiful trees, as much as I would love to have solar energy. I would love for everybody to have it, and, the way things are going, everyone will within a few decades. The cost is drastically declining, new materials of manufacture are making solar energy panels ever more efficient, and coal and all other forms of electricity generation are being priced out of the market. Donald Trump couldn't "bring back coal" even if he wanted to, which he probably still does.