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Why is it

R

RBoots

Well-known Member
That heights of any sort never used to bother me when I was younger. Now days, I hate being on the really tall ladders or man lifts. I had to do some work on the underside of the eaves on the back of my house tonight and bad a 32' extension ladder just shy of all the way up. I hated being on it, just felt like it could take off at any minute and slide, dumping me off it that high up. Now a 24' ladder, I have no problem with. I can climb a tree and fell the top off it, or climb to the top of the rafters in a barn, but what is it about tall ladders? I got a 60' manlift to cut a tree one time, it was about 30' too short, but I only used it to get to the limbs. Put it all the way up and climbed out into the tree, I hated being in that thing, but felt totally safe in the tree. I couldn't have been more glad to get finished up and get off that stupid ladder this evening.

Ross
 
Yep back when I was In the Navy it was common for me to go up on the crows nest on the JFK CVA67 as a safety man but now days I can not get up more then maybe 15-20 feet and I start to shake.
 
Age now dictates and regulates my fears. No more hieghts and a crawler under a low vehicle makes me claustrophobic. I do ask for help from my son's more than I'd like.
 
Ever jump out of a perfectly good airplane? In the dark?
I won't be doing that again anytime soon.
Ell, I paid $25 to jump off a cliff back in the early 80's. Twice!
Hang gliding. Not likely to do that ever again either.
But man, they were sure exciting at the time! LOL
 
btdt , still got the t-shirt , but i ought to burn that along with all those confounded ladders
i used to love climbin ,as a kid ,.now i am 60 ,.golly , with this neurapathy ,my feet are like 2x4s nailed to my leggs ,,. i need to watch it,never know what my feet are up to . i have fell so many times , back then as a kid , learned how to fall safely ,and most times i dont get injured too bad ,.LOL ,.
when i was 6 , i went up a 40 ft Harvestore , i wanted to see the OHIO River,.loved Ferris Wheels , and Penny a Pound flying days ,. i could fly for 80 cents,.Lol ,. in my home improvement Days , i recounted with my 1st wife at least 30 church steeples that i have either completely rebuilt or remodeled , resided, or simply stopped from leaking


..we used extension ladders on the siding work , i recall being up about 20 feet , working off a 20 ft aluminum walkboard , when a rogue cold front wind blew everything i was standing on over , i gripped the board with my hands and rode the board down keeping my feet and legs above the board , the walk board i was on hit a mound of dirt just behind me, breaking my fall significately ,my heavy end see-sawed down to the mud and i rolled off,.and the endof the board see-sawed backup some 6 feet, i was not hurt ,..my brother thought i was seriously hurt, because i was laughing so hard over my incredible good luck ,.
 
Perfectly good airplane? In the dark? Yeah, BTDT, and got the grand sum of $55 a month to do it.
 
"and got the grand sum of $55 a month to do it."

My dad used to say he got $27 a day. One day a month.
Same deal, except I got paid a little more. :)
 
We built our house in our mid twenties. An A-frame with four gables. Ridge is 22 ft. above the floor with a walk-out basement. I ran up a 40' ladder at full extension to put the finish on 5 foot overhangs. One hand and one foot on the rungs and reached out with the other hand to brush. Now I can't even put the ladder up. I'm a whole lot more cautious than I was in those days.
 
Aversion to something we don't like is common.

I hate heights. I have been to the top of the Pearl in Taiwan, hated it. Top of hotel in Thailand, top of hotel in Shanaghai, hated that, Ate on the Seattle spinning dome, hated it. Worked on the 38th floor of a building in Chengdu, China, hated it.

But, I had 30 plus jumps in the military. Low altitude, high altitude, C130's, bunch of SF helicopter jumps. Loved it.

I finally figured it was how I thought about the base, On a man made structure I have always been nervous, but leaping out of an airplane is different.
 
I have to get used to the job like on the roof putting on steel roofing much over 15 ft I get used to it and is not to bad then. We use a basket on a Skytrac for most things high like roofs and barn ends. Don't know how we got by without that thing use it for more things all the time. Painted dad's house with it last week.
 

We learn with age, and experience. I read in "Band of Brothers" That six months after D-Day, the ones that made it to that point would simply not take the chances that they did in the first few days.
 
Yeah, I think the age part is two-fold as others said: 1) As we get older, we realize we're not infallible, 2) our bodies aren't what they used to be. Our reaction times are slower, we break easier and take longer to heal. Heck, I don't even jump off the tailgate of my p/u any more. It's jarring, I'm afraid I'll twist an ankle or break a leg.

As for ladders, I still get up on my 24 footer. I get nervous, though, standing on the roof hear the edge if I'm cleaning gutters. I'm worried that I'll get dizzy or trip or some such thing. It's a long way down. Stuff happens fast and as I said, we don't react as quick as we used to.

I remember as a kid jumping off our garage roof for fun!
 
When we were young we all believed we were invincible. When we were not invincible, we could heal fast.
 

I know what you mean, tall ladders aren't for me anymore. I have a 40' one I have to use on the gable ends of the barn or to fix something on the TV antenna (attached to the chimney). Just do not like to get up there. I keep telling the wife we need to buy a man lift to do the high work and sell it when we are done. Rentals seem pretty high on them, last I checked it was over $1K a week plus the pickup and delivery separate. I doubt I could get everything done in a week, even two weeks.
 
I'm the same way. As a kid I climbed trees, got on roofs and everything else. Now ladders and steep roofs are things I'd rather not do.

Rick
 
Back in my Air Force days when I had to change a leading edge anti-ice sensor in a C141 Cargo plane ; I would put the new sensor and safety wire in my top pocket. The tail is around four stories tall on the C141. I would climb onto the cherry picker stand and have the operator take me up. I would look up at all times, never looking down and replace the sensor and have the operator lower me back down. As long as I didn't look down it did not bother me.
 
I tie off the ladder and use a harness myself so I can't fall. If you have the equipment you might as well use it. Then there is no fear of heights because you can't fall.
 
(quoted from post at 08:48:59 08/30/17) I tie off the ladder and use a harness myself so I can't fall. If you have the equipment you might as well use it. Then there is no fear of heights because you can't fall.
Click to expand...

Well that sounds good but how do you get that ladder tied and untied. I am suspicious that it would involve reaching and stretching.
 
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