Erin

Erin Kelly is a creative girl. A real "initiative-taker" as they say in the world of office euphemisms.

It's hard when many of your friends go away to college, and you are left behind in high school. Erin had plenty of friends her age, but how do you fill the time when so many faces you saw everyday were elsewhere?

Roofing. You go roofing.

To successfully "roof" one must jump onto some person's house and get both their feet on top of their roof. One earns points if they succeed. Friends track each other's points and see who has the most at the end of the summer.

When I first heard about this I thought at best it sounded like something Dick Van Dyke would have tried in Mary Poppins. I thought at worst it sounded like trespassing. If you have ever seen Mary Poppins you know that even the best case scenario presented above still pissed off a few characters in the movie regardless of how well Van Dyke could dance.

Erin would describe her roofing adventures to many on many drives to Buttonwoods ice cream shop that first summer I was back. She invited me to join. I was torn between wanting to try it myself and deep concern for her safety.

But Erin was a creative person. That's what happens to people who listened to Sgt. Pepper's as often as she did. They live on the highwire, and we were lucky to have them around.