Sunday, July 15, 2007

FEAR OF HEIGHTS?

My friend and I were talking the other day about our fear of climbing ladders. I said I didn't know if it was the fear of heights or the fear of falling that bothered me the most. I can step up on a stool and get a weird feeling so maybe it is the fear of falling. But, maybe not. Today we stopped by to visit a friend. His wife was my son's 8th grade teacher. She was so nice to him that she was always dear to my heart. When the kids would have special school events, she and her husband would come. Her husband and my husband became friends. Anyway, this man bought an old windmill on the west side of our town and is fixing it up to live in it. It needs A LOT of work.









We were driving by so we stopped to see him. He isn't living there, but was working in it. The first floor will be the living room with a fireplace and bathroom, go up a flight of stairs to the kitchen, the master bedroom will be on the 3rd floor, and the guest room on the 4th floor, the 5th floor has eight round windows, and the roof area will be for storage. All of the rooms are round.. obviously, and the 2 ft (for now) wide concrete staircase winds up the wall with a landing on each floor. Let's start with the stairs. really narrow and no hand rail yet. We walked out onto the platform and I could see the ground through the floor. I had a real sense of near panic there, and I didn't stay out long. I managed 3 flights practically crawling up the stairs I finally had my hands on the step ahead of me because there was nothing to hold onto, and I could see all of the way down the sides of the steps., leaving each floor behind me. I thought it would be harder going down, but Bill walked in front of me and let me hold his hand. Wasn't that sweet? Made it a lot easier to get down.

While this is a very cool building, I can't even imagine wanting to live somewhere that every room is a different floor. Of course, I have bad knees, but this couple isn't that much younger than I am. The windmill blades will be on the opposite side from the pictured side, and will generate all of the power needed for the home.

When I was a kid, we used to visit an uncle. The youngest brother of my great grandmother. He lived far into the mountains, and the only way to get to his house was to drive through a creek, or walk across a swinging bridge

This is the bridge, which is still in use. We actually found the farm a couple of years ago. It used to be if you stood to the left of the bridge, you could see the big farmhouse, but it has grown up a lot in the last 40 years. Imagine that. When I was little, we had to walk across that bridge, and it always scared the daylights out of me. I think that is why I don't like unstable things that are far above the ground. As a matter of fact, I don't like driving across bridges if I can see the water. I do try to keep my eyes open though!


2 comments:

Rian said...

I would not say I'm afraid of heights. I can walk to the edge of a cliff (no railing) and look down, whereas Jim stops about two fee from the edge. Bridges don't bother me at all. Even swinging bridges.

But I do not like ladders. Even stepstools.

I would NOT like living in that windmill and going up and down stairs all day. No thanks.

Vicki W said...

That picture of the farm reminds me of the place where my Grandmother grew up in the mountains of Virginia. they had to walk across a bridge to get to the house. Later when they had cars and the creek was low enough, they would just drive across the creek bed. But is was (is) a very pretty place much like this.

The windmill? Unique but I sure hope he got a good deal on it!