Guttering and gargoyles

Hi neighbors. The trees are shedding pretty fast. Let's hope for a warm winter.

Don't forget next Saturday is the last day of daylight saving time. Turn your clocks back one hour before you go to bed.

The man who does my lawn came by the other day to mow the leaves and said he had a new contraption to blow the leaves out of the gutters. It didn't take him long to clear them out.

I remember the many times my son climbed a ladder to clean them out and clear the downspouts with the water hose. The new way certainly seemed easier and faster.

The use of home guttering has been around a long time. In medieval days it was used to keep roof water away from the foundation of the building; much the same reason we use it today.

Some early guttering was simply a wooden stick set to divert the roof water in a certain direction. I've seen ads on television where this method is coming back into style.

Other older forms of guttering were rocks used in a similar manner to the wooden sticks on roofs. Again, their only function was to get the roof water away from the building's foundation and prevent it from draining over a doorway.

As time passed, the functional became more graphic and imagination came into full play with the advent of the gargoyle.

We've all seen television shows or photos of huge gargoyles on church or castle roofs. These were actually built where the roof would slant and the accumulated water from the roofs would be funneled through the gargoyles to send the water cascading onto the streets (and of course the people) below.

No wonder they made them look so mean.

Having a torrent of cold water suddenly smacking you on the head would make anyone look up in anger. Seeing the ugly and demonic looking gargoyle would most likely make someone forget their anger and just walk a little faster.

Modern day Goth meanings aside, gargoyles have been a mystery since their first construction.

Although gargoyles date back to ancient Greece, we are most familiar with the ones of the medieval period usually placed on church roofs. No one seems to know why these monstrosities were made to look so hideous, but there is no lack of theories.

One idea is they were all that was left to use since God couldn't be depicted, Christ was already within the church building, and simply using human forms or ancient gods seemed inappropriate.

It would seem logical to use angels if the idea was to promote safety from evil inside the church. But I don't believe any church used angels as roof ornaments.

Some think the uglier the gargoyle the more the meaning would get across that evil was outside the church and waiting to pounce on the unaware.

It was suggested that the gargoyles were given wings to either fly about at night protecting the good folk of the town, or to go flying about at night hunting for the bad folk. Either explanation couldn't be argued as most people weren't out and about at night and the gargoyles always returned to their same rooftops each night before dawn.

One theory is the gargoyles were added to keep the building from falling down. Whether this belief was based on the weight of the gargoyles balancing the walls, or the drainage function of the gargoyles was used to protect the foundation, no one seems to know.

Whatever the reason, gargoyles are a part of world history well known to us all.

In United States history gutters were used to not only direct rain water off the roof, but to gather it into barrels or cisterns for use by the home owners.

Today home guttering serves the same purpose as its ancient predecessor; diverting water off the roof and away from the foundation and door openings.

I guess collecting leaves is only guttering's hobby not its real function, although it seems to have a real talent for it.

Until the next time friends remember, keeping your gutters clean keeps your roof in good repair longer, and is as much work today as it was in ancient Greece.