The Fair Method

When I was growing up, I learned how to build and remodel from my dad and my grandfather. I also learned how to be the good building assistant, from what I had seen my mom and my grandmother doing to help. Most of this help involved holding things. Usually holding them above your head, and for long periods of time while the men stood back to look at how the project was coming, is the thing (2x4, cupboard, light....what the thing was doesn't matter, it was the process) level, in the right spot, going to work....... Little did I realize that this Fair Method Of Building would also be the Lee Method. I must admit to a little guilty pleasure last year when my parents came over to help us put the new cupboards in the kitchen - dad was holding up a cabinet while Mike was checking it out. I seem to remember something coming out of dad's mouth to the effect of "Hurry up, this is heavy". HMMM, seemed familiar. So, this week Mike and I were building a trap door to the basement at the apartment house. Mike was attaching struts to make the door easy to lift and stay up on it's own. While he was doing this, I had to hold the 75 pound door up on about a 75 degree angle while Mike worked on the parts. This involved letting my hand that was holding the door rest on my shoulder (it hurt too much to just let the door rest on my shoulder by itself). After about a half hour of doing this (with the occasional reprive of letting it down while he checked how the struts were working), I told Mike that even though I was using my shoulder, the door was still heavy. Finally he told me to let it down. By this time, my whole arm was asleep, shoulder to wrist. Instead of putting it down slowly like he wanted, it slammed down. I think the Lee method is a little worse than the Fair method was.