Ansel Head had been on many roofs when he was running his grandfather’s real estate company in Birmingham. They were flat ones, built up over the wooden decking with coal tar felt, hot pitch, and gravel. Climbing the ladders to the low buildings had been no real challenge to the former Navy fighter pilot. As for the guys actually doing the work, they were more concerned with heat than height. When it came to spreading hot tar from boiling kettles in the August sun, junior executive Head omitted that course from his quest for an education.
It takes a special breed to be a roofer, to do this grueling, backbreaking job high above the ground. But without these fearless craftsmen, tent makers and miners would be the only ones providing shelter for the masses. Continue reading
Watching his friend Ansel Larry die was a hard lesson. But even for the uninterested Head, an education in death was a required course for his education. In a short span, he had been forced to study at close hand his brother’s death, his mother’s deteriorating health, his own knee replacement, and then his friend’s departure. Things were getting too near to Head for him to disregard the subject any longer.
