Amateur roofer for hire

I spent yesterday roofing. In the words of my father, it's a job for a strong back and a weak mind. I don't know about the weak mind, but I agree it calls for a strong back. I slave away for sometimes close to 40 hours a week sitting behind a desk, so it was a somewhat welcome change of pace to spend a day doing manual labor. I grew up on a farm so I'm not a stranger to hard work, even though we haven't been acquainted in quite some time. The crew was made up of my spry 70+ year old father-in-law, his equally aged brother, and my uncle on my wife's side who is pushing 60. .
The one part about manual labor that I have always enjoyed is the sense of accomplishment. You can look at your work in full view of the world and say "I did that." I create financial statements all day so I do accomplish something, however most people have no idea what it is. And no one considers it hard work as there is no sweating or grunting involved.
We worked on the roof for a solid 8 hours and I'm happy to report it's complete with no loss of limbs. My muscles are a bit sore today and I've got a nice blister to prove I'm a soft office worker. The moment of irony that will stick with me was when we were cutting the steel. If you've never heard it before, it's quite a treat. It's the loudest, highest pitched noise you can imagine. I was recruited to hold the steel as it was being cut while my uncle ran the saw. He was wearing ear protection, as was my father-in-law and his brother covered his ears. I couldn't, obviously, because I was holding the steel. The ironic part is all three of them have significant hearing loss while I can hear fine. Or at least I could before yesterday.