Hey! Get Down from There!

Now that my son and granddaughters have gone home, I guess I needed to find someone else to worry about. It seems that everyone in my neighborhood has decided to cut down trees. It started at the end of the block and has been working its way closer. This morning, about the same time I started my eight-hour scoring shift, I heard the very loud buzz of chainsaws coming from two yards over. I bombed out on my first calibration set (I'd like to blame it on the noise) but passed the second set in stellar fashion and managed to pay little attention to the noise. When I went out on the porch to stretch on my lunch break, I thought the landscapers were crazy; the sun was shining relentlessly, and the temperature was about 94 with a heat index of probably 102. They were high in a tree, dismantling it from the top down.

Around 3:00, our usual afternoon storm started building and by 4:00 we had a severe thunderstorm warning in effect: gusts up to 60 mph and sustained winds of 30-35 mph, heavy lightning, and possible hail. Even with the gusting wind, the landscapers were still grinding away. Lightning was striking my house and still they were at it. I wanted to run outside and tell them it was dangerous, that they should stop, but I was on the clock, and really it was none of my business. They were grown men, whether they were exercising appropriate caution or not. The rain came down in sheets and I couldn't hear the saws anymore, although I don't know if that was because of the noise the rain was making or because the landscapers had stopped. Finally my shift ended and I looked outside. I hadn't heard any emergency vehicles (but they may not have needed the sirens back here in my court), so I guess they survived.

Sometimes I wonder how I can get hurt doing virtually anything, despite my relatively low-risk lifestyle, and these fools -- and others like them -- are able to cheat death. Maybe if I hung from a metal ladder with a chainsaw in the middle of a wind and lightning storm I'd be safer than I am pulling weeds in my yard or walking through my house. Maybe the key is just being willing to take the risk.