In a message dated 7/30/98 5:25:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:

<< You have a tile roof on your brick house, and a few tiles are
 broken?  Louie the roofer comes out.  He only does roll roofing.
 His business is booming because his roofs are the cheapest
 (in terms of what it costs right now).  He says,  They don't
 make tile roofs any more.  Let me give you a nice modern roof.
 (Why should he advise you to search the metro area for someone
 who does tiles?  and the tile repair will cost more, this year,
 than Louie's entire new roof) >>

Very well put.

It continues to be interesting when Louie gets started ripping the tile off
the roof then finds out there is a local preservation group with the clout to
stop him dead in his tracks -- even if it means they get the police involved
to impound his truck. Louie has no clue as to what he has done wrong, and
feels insulted that his roll roofing craft is not considered historic. He
immediatly hits a bad nerve when he uses all the taboo words. A cigar is often
being waved around at this point. I think 90% of survival in historic
preservation is having a trained vocabulary, the other 10% is keeping your
mouth shut. If Louie is resourceful he asks his lawyer cousin for help, who
tells him to look in the yellow pages for a preservation oriented roofer to
ask for help. Louie asks for help, but not to change or improve his ways, he
wants to know what to do to convince the crazy people of the merits of roll
roofing. This is a long and difficult strategy and I rue the day Louie gets
smart and writes the book.

][<en Follett