Hershberger High Top Club
My grandson longed to climb onto our low hanging roof. Standing in front of the garage he stared at its close edge. At 12, Eli could jump and touch the overhang, but could not grab it. The blue dumpster beckoned. Eli climbed onto its lid just as I walked outside. He knelt on it and reached up, eyeballing the distance to the edge of the roof.
“Not a good idea. Get a ladder out back,” I said.
“Okay,” he slid down and ran to find it. He walked back carrying the aluminum ladder, leaned it against the edge of the roof and began climbing. At the last rung before crossing to the roof, he stopped. Stepping off the ladder meant letting go of earth.
“I’m scared,” he shuttered, turned and scurried down the rungs.
His 9 year-old sister, Caroline, brushed him aside, put her foot on the ladder, climbed to the roof, stopped, considered the awesome spread of brown shingles, the midair step from ladder to roof, shivered and returned to earth.
Seven year-old, Daisy looked at them defiantly. Without hesitation she grabbed the sides of the ladder with both hands and marched up its rungs to the roof, quickly studied the transfer and did it. She looked at her big brother and sister. “Come on.”
They both made it onto the roof.
Their mom walked out, saw them sitting on the roof, joined them and said, “Let’s eat lunch up here.” I knew what that meant. I fixed plastic trays of food and took it to just beneath them, “I can’t come any further with the food. You need to come here and take them from me. I am not climbing ladders.”
I stood on the cement drive with two-yearold Katie and snapped pictures of the three standing tall against the sky. Emboldened at having conquered getting on the roof, the three grinned and tentatively began walking across the shingles, studying the neighbor’s houses, the trees that once loomed over them and the blue sky above.
I photographed the four sitting in the valley where the main roof met the roof over the porch. Their mom snapped a picture of Katie holding my hand and looking up at them. Our postings on Facebook documented that they had become members of the Hershberger High Top Club.
The HHTC began 25 years ago when my teenage sons and their friends walked home from school one day to raid the fridge. They decided it was a lovely spring day to have lunch on the roof, so they did and the story began that Hershbergers always ate on the roof.
In the past other grandchildren conquered their fear of heights and saw the world from another perspective. Other times the roof provided the perfect spot to sit and watch the fall migratory habits of the Monarch butterfly. We welcomed future brides into the family with a roof top lunch. This time the new HHTC members ran across the roof, bouncing the rafters beneath them.
“Hey! Walk gently. You are shaking the chandeliers,” I called to Eli, Caroline and Daisy. They giggled and tiptoed. The girls came down to play with dolls. Eli stayed on the roof and wanted to sleep there. He didn’t but early the next day he headed back to the ladder until Grandpa stopped him, “Wait until the roof dries.” He waited impatiently because he knew he had to go home to a two-story house with a steep roof. Once home he said, “’Thanks for taking me to El Dorado” possibly because this time he reached a mountain top.
Joan Hershberger is an author and former staff writer for the El Dorado News-Times. She can be reached at joanh@everybody.org.