by Tim Smith
My wife, Mary, bless her heart, proudly declares herself to be “indoorsy”. She just can’t understand why I seek adventures like running marathons, racing motorcycles, or skydiving. As I think back to younger days, I can see now that there were signs.
There definitely were signs.
I cannot recall exactly how I was approached about photographing the First Baptist Church of Arcadia. The church was undertaking a promotional project and needed black and white photographs of the building. I agreed, and I recall making deliberate efforts to capture shots from every conceivable angle and perspective. I couldn’t help but notice that the town water tower stood directly across from the church’s front entrance.
Hmmm.
I wondered whether the town of Arcadia would permit me to climb to the top of the tower and photograph the church from there. What was I thinking?
Ever since I was twelve years old, my summer employment had been painting houses alongside my father. I had spent several years climbing and hanging from extension ladders. While OSHA had been established by then, its regulations had not yet reached Bienville Parish. The previous summer, my father and I had painted the Cypress Springs Baptist Church in Sailes, Louisiana—a 150-year-old white wooden structure that still stands today, and where my dad was the pastor. We had a 32-foot ladder, but it fell short of reaching the gable on the church’s rear wall. Our solution? We positioned my father’s 1968 Ford pickup and placed the ladder in the truck bed, but that still proved insufficient. We returned home and retrieved our homemade ping-pong table, placing it in the truck bed as well.
Better, but still a bit too short. What was I thinking?
The next approach required some creative engineering. I decided to wire my paint brush to a broom handle. Our equipment was decidedly low-tech—state-of-the-art by 1940s standards, one might say, only this 1979. For instance, we took the wire bail handle from a gallon paint can, bent it into an “S” shape, and used it to suspend another paint can from the extension ladder’s rungs. Using a paint brush attached to a 4½-foot handle would prove challenging.
With everything assembled—truck, table, ladder, brush, and paint can with S-shaped bail—I positioned myself at the base of the ladder and looked upward. The fully extended 32-foot ladder had a pronounced bow in the middle, which I estimated at over a foot of deflection to one side. It resembled a banana. Well, I thought, it should work.
But first things first.
Nestled securely in the gable peak of the church was a substantial Louisiana red wasp nest—perhaps 10 inches in diameter and densely populated with these formidable creatures. What to do?
Back to creative problem-solving. The time-tested method (circa 1940s) for addressing such an obstacle involved a coffee can full of kerosene, or gasoline, and a willingness to abandon fear and caution. For those unfamiliar with this technique, the procedure is straightforward: climb to the top of the ladder, douse the nest with kerosene, and descend the ladder as rapidly as possible. I should note that descending a 32-foot ladder with a significant bow while moving at speed presents its own challenges.
Success is measured by getting stung only a little and managing not to fall and die.
Then you must climb the ladder again and dislodge the nest with your 4½-foot paint brush. You never eliminate all the wasps; they remain airborne and deliver additional stings.
Now you can finally paint? Not quite. With dozens of wasps still circling the evicted nest site, I take a standard paint brush and a can of paint and ascend the ladder once more.
We were using a quality exterior oil paint—none of the newfangled water-based latex products on this 150-year-old structure. With my head on a swivel, as the wasps attacked, I defended myself with my paint-covered brush. A tiny amount of oil paint is sufficient to disable a wasp, sending it spiraling earthward with a fresh coat of white paint. Only after dispatching a dozen or more of these aerial adversaries did I finally attend to painting the gable.
The result was not my finest work, but it was adequately covered. More importantly, I had survived and earned my $3 per hour. Before anyone gets bent out of shape about how my dad could make me do this, he didn’t. I did it because I knew if I didn’t, he would. I was 18 years old, weighed a hundred and nothing, and I could climb like a squirrel. He weighed over 200 and I wasn’t about to let him climb that ladder. He had two sons, so one was surely expendable, but I always figured it was the other one. (sorry Gary)
As I stood contemplating the water tower, the thought occurred to me: I can do that.
I proceeded to city hall and asked the police chief whether I might climb the tower to photograph the church. In what I can only describe as a lapse in judgment and a dereliction of duty, he granted permission. “OK,” he said. What was he thinking?
My constant companion and I, along with our cameras, approached the tower. My friend Mike James, camera in hand to document the endeavor, never once tried to talk me out of this poorly planned adventure. Perhaps he reasoned that if things went badly awry, his photographs might achieve a measure of fame. Documenting the tragedy.
Upon reaching the base of the tower where the ladder to the upper walkway begins, I observed that the ascent was not a conventional ladder but rather a zigzag pattern of bracing extending all the way to the top. So be it.
My experience with ladders and youthful invincibility, and perceived immortality, carried me to the top, where I discovered that the ladder providing access to the walkway consisted of steel rungs approximately 3/8 inch in diameter—roughly the thickness of a pencil. I decided to quit thinking.
Now facing that last part of the climb, I realized that I would need to lean backward and essentially hang from these pencil-thin rungs to proceed upward. This was unsettling.
Nevertheless, I managed to climb onto the 5-rung ladder and reach the walkway. Only then did I examine the welds securing the ladder to the tower. They should have been robust welds to the angle-iron, but the welder had fastened both sides using only a BB-sized drop of weld material, which had become rusty and corroded significantly over time. These welds did not inspire confidence, but instead only faith and hope.
What was I thinking?
Looking down from the top, I could see a few people had stopped to see the spectacle.
Since we are all here today, you know those welds held. I can attest that the descent was equally harrowing.
I obtained the photographs of the church. A drone would have been invaluable, but such technology lay four decades in the future.
My photographs did not bring me wealth or fame, and because those welds did not fail, Mike’s photographs remained similarly obscure, and the other people also left, probably a little disappointed that nothing really exciting happened. NASCAR is always more fun when they wreck.
Some risks are genuinely worthwhile; others, decidedly less so.
Terrible ideas make for great stories.
