John Slack - 7-09-09

1955 (or there abouts) in Syracuse, Ohio, a town located in Meigs County, Sutton Twp to be exact, an Ohio river town– just like a lot of other river towns at the same time period I will be referring to in this writing endeavor.

Not too many people punched time cards those days, most people found work where ever it could be found and a lot of people had no work to be found though a little moonshine or cold bottle of home brew, however, always seemed to be available.

Now there were a few men in town who were pretty good roof painters and could make a pretty good living during the summer, but occasionally one or two “wannabes” would manage to do one or two roofs every now and then, mostly for beer money, and this was the case with Cracker Belly and his friend.

Now as I write, I don’t make a habit of using real names, however I will say this other gentleman was a fair roof painter, a man of normal height and weight, but on the other hand, Cracker Belly was a tall, slim man with quite long legs and arms, with a small beer belly–my guess is if he was to turn sideways and stick out his tongue he would look like a zipper, and if he squatted down he resemble a big spider.

Now here is the scene.  The day started dry and hot right off in the morning, and if you know anything about painting roofs , this is exactly how you want it to be when doing this kind of work. Now this house being about a story and a half tall with a sharp pitch to the roof sort of leads me to believe this had something to do with these two second rate roof painters getting the job in the first place.

About four hours into the job Cracker Belly is standing up on the peak of the roof getting ready to paint another section down the roof when there is a loud scream ,and the other gentleman working there on the roof jerked his head around then he quickly brought his hat around just in time to see Cracker Belly sliding down the roof like a skier at the Olympics, sailing right out into thin air, violently flapping his arms, trying to fly, before hitting the ground.

Now when he hit the ground flat footed, his long legs acted like two long spring loaded stilts, and his knees came up to his chin and his butt hit the ground and he never moved, he set there in that possession just like he was planted there, and his buddy made his way down to the ground as quick as possible and started calling for help but as he raced to Cracker Belly’s aid fearing the worst , Cracker Belly slowly started stretching out one arm working his fingers and arm a little, the he done the other arm the same way, then he set back on his butt and slowly stretched flexing one leg and ankle, then he done the same to the other leg and after deciding ever thing was in place and working he slowly got up stretching everything out, making sure everything thing wase working right, leaving his equipment laying on the ground.

He never looked back, and to the best of my knowledge, his roof painting days were over.

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