Old Man of the Hillside

Dad stayed on for a few days to help out. Good timing, as there was no way these goal posts could go up single-handedly. They barely went up double-handedly. The plan was to build them, half-stand them up and lean them against those already vertical, and then put them in place when Anne came home from work. In the back of my head, I knew Dad and I would never stick to this plan. It goes against our very nature. Sure enough, after we built one, Dad looked over and said, “You think we can do it?” I think I said something like “Hell, yeah,” and it was game on. We tried a few different methods, without success. Then, out came the ropes. By hooking a long rope over the two ends and stretching it over the erected goalposts, one person should conceivably be able to stand on the ground and exert enough force to pull the post up, after an initial lift by another person on the deck. Oh yeah, this was getting good. The rope was fastened, Dad took to the ground and I stayed on deck. After a lot of pulling, pushing, yelling, and many Band-Aids and Advil later, the goal-posts were up. Anne provided key assistance on the last few, and then directed the effort to make everything weather-tight. It was almost dark, but to be able to stand back and look at what was, finally, beginning to look like our house, was an unforgettable feeling.