Hard workers, heat, and ice

As I mentioned in an earlier post my neighborhood was hit pretty hard by hail a few weeks ago. The sounds of neighbors talking about hail damage have been replaced by the noise of work trucks and roofs being replaced. Most of the workers are not local and are of Mexican descent. Working from sunrise to sundown in what was record-breaking heat last week of 100 degrees. Today my roof was being replaced on a breezy and gorgeous 80 degree Midwestern summer day.

One neighbor supplied their roofers with hourly pitchers of ice-cold water. Another asked that the dumpster be moved from their driveway and then ignored the workers. I had planned to be more like the first, but as a result of a busy kid-event filled day ended up somewhere in between. I planned to buy a flat of Gatorade and put it on ice for them. But when they arrived at 5:00 pm two days earlier than expected I was not prepared.

Then today when they arrived at 7:00 am to finish I was busy shuttling my kids to swim lessons, baseball, and tennis. As the workday came to an end I was embarrassed I had not taken the opportunity to say “buenos dias”. At one point I did see one worker climb the ladder with two ice-cold bottles of water, it made me feel less disappointed in myself. As cleanup began, I looked deep in the freezer and found some popsicles leftover from last summer. I gave them to two out of the five or six workers and am now waiting for the others to come down from my roof. It’s a small gesture but I know for me nothing cools my body down faster than popsicles and ice cream. I then went back inside and filled a plastic bag with the remaining popsicles and went back outside. I took the opportunity to begin a conversation with the oldest member of the team and practiced my “pocito” Spanish and learned he was indeed from Mexico and now lives in Minneapolis (3 hours away). He said, in broken English, that they had a lot of work here, at which point I went back inside to my freezer and brought out my bag of souvenir hail to show him why he was so busy. I enjoyed my 10 minutes or so with him and felt that he, too, appreciated our encounter.

When they left a little after 5:00pm I learned they were headed straight to another jobsite and was once again happy I shared the popsicles with them all providing them with a “dinner” break, albeit short, before continuing their hardwork.

Maybe in another post I’ll talk about how I felt when a truckload of roofers unexpectedly arrived in my driveway at 5:00 pm when I was home alone with my kids.