Funny Name. Great Fence. Trusted in Colorado Springs.

💡The Origin of Our Funny Name

TLDR: Sisyphus was an Ancient Greek dude, that angered the Gods and they punished him by forcing him to roll a boulder up a hill for all eternity. When it reaches the top, it rolls down the hill and he has to start over again. Some other dudes and dudettes think that story has lots of meaning and depth. I used it to make a (super sweet and awesome) logo and name for a fencing company.

Oh good, you didn’t stop at the TLDR… Time to geek out a little bit. About a 5 minute read.

In Greek Mythology, there was a founder and ruler of the city state of Ephyra (now Corinth). Let’s say up front that Sisyphus was not a “good” guy, and we don’t condone a lot of his behavior in life. Like a lot of characters in Greek Mythology, he was a complex and deep individual, with his own goals, motivations and desires. However, he was cunning, intelligent and clever. Some would say scheming, backstabbing and ruthless, but you say tomato, I say to-ma-to.

Zeus had kidnapped Aegina, daughter of the river God Asopus. One day, Sisyphus came upon Asopus and the river god asked if he knew the whereabouts of Aegina. Sisyphus knew, and he made a bargain for the information. He asked Asopus to make an eternally flowing spring appear in Ephyra, which he did, and Sisyphus revealed that Zeus had taken her. Asopus flew into a rage and confronted Zeus, and they did battle.

Zeus (also a complex character and not a “good” guy) was obviously mad at Sisyphus for selling him out, and sent Thanatos, the God of Death to chain Sisyphus in Tartarus (Greek equivalent of Hell). Thanatos appears, and accounts differ on what really happened, but Sisyphus managed to trick Thanatos to put on the chains intended for him. Sweet, Sisyphus-1, Death-0. One small problem… with Thanatos bound, no deaths could occur. The sick and injured lingered on and on in pain and suffering, no matter how badly injured soldiers wouldn’t die, those lost at sea endlessly drowning and struggling for breath.

This attracted the attention of Ares the God of War. He wasn’t having much fun in battles anymore because his opponents wouldn’t die. He went to find Thanatos, and found him bound in chains, and freed him. Thanatos told him that Sisyphus had tricked him, Ares hunted him down, and turned Sisyphus over to Thanatos.

During this time, Sisyphus asked his wife to have his corpse displayed in the public square when he died, not to put the coins in his eyes for Charon the Boatman, and to not bury him or give him any rites. So when he was turned over to Thanatos and died, he showed up on the banks of the river Styx, with no fare for the Boatman. Stuck there he waited. Persephone, wife of Hades was returning to spend the winter with him, and came upon Sisyphus. Sisyphus complained to her that his wife had disrespected his corpse, left him unburied and with no fare to cross into the Underworld. He feigned anger at his wife and convinced Persephone to allow him to return for 3 days to haunt and scold his wife until she gave him a proper burial. Persephone, sympathetic and naïve, sent him back.

Clever Sisyphus had this planned from the start. He didn’t return as agreed, instead he inhabited his body, and kept living for some time, as long as 10 or 20 years. Once Hades found out he flew into a rage, he left the Underworld retrieving Sisyphus for himself. As punishment for his hubris, he set Sisyphus to a task, promising to return him to life if he could but roll a boulder to the top of a hill in Tartarus. Sisyphus agreed but didn’t know that Hades had enchanted the boulder to roll back down the hill mere feet from the top every time, showing him that his cleverness wasn’t superior to the Gods.

Great Story! So What?

Many philosophers have taken on the myth to examine it’s deeper stories and meanings. In common parlance, a Sisyphean task is something endless, meaningless and without reward. Imagine sorting a stack of hay into straws of equal length, and when you finish, there’s a new haystack waiting for you. Mopping in the rain. Every time you wash your car, it snows as you are leaving the carwash.

In the famous essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” by the French philosopher Albert Camus in 1942, he concludes “The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” If you have the time and inclination, it is a good and interesting read, and I recommend it. What Camus is pointing at is that once we recognize the absurdity of life, we realize that we are not struggling to get to where we want to be. There is no relief from the struggles of life. We struggle to survive infancy, struggle through class with that one teacher, struggle in sports, then we are adults and struggle to pay the bills, raise children, work, and then we struggle through our retirements with worn out bodies, slowly succumbing to the ravages of time and oxidation (note to self: eat more blueberries). The struggles ARE the meaning of life, and to be truly happy we must find meaning in the struggle.

Money doesn’t end the struggles. It provides new struggles and challenges. Power corrupts you. Fame brings its own set of problems. As soon as you reach the heights of anything, you can be brought back down again. Just like the boulder. So what do you do? The best thing to do is to smile, be grateful for the experience gained and the friends met along the way. Pushing the boulder will be easier this time. You already did it once or a hundred times before. Hang in there. Grit your teeth and start again.

Dude, you build (Great!) fence… You’re not a Philosophy Major…

No. I’m not a Philosophy Major. I didn’t even go to college. But I geek out every now and then and listen to people that are way smarter than me. There’s an old joke that goes like this… Every person that goes to college learns to ask and answer a fundamental question. Physicists learn to ask, “how does it work?” Engineers learn to ask, “how do I make it work?” Liberal Arts majors learn to ask, “Would you like fries with that?”

Anyway, if you have a look at our Logo, it depicts Sisyphus, but he’s not pushing the boulder anymore. Piece by piece, plank by plank he brought the materials up the hill on dozens of trips with the boulder. When we was walking back down after it, he would pause and build a little of his fence. A little here, a little there… until finally he felt the fence was strong enough. The last time he pushed the boulder up the hill, he gave it a little nudge to land behind the fence, thus holding it at the top of the hill, and defeating the Gods with his cunning and cleverness once again.

So, to wrap it up, we all are going to have a boulder and a hill to push it up. Everyone has their challenges, from the poorest person to the richest man in the world, from the genius to the village idiot. We all struggle. We all have a boulder. Sometimes the hill is steeper, other times more even. Sometimes we must go around an insurmountable obstacle, or bash through it. Sometimes we have to reach out for help, and sometimes we can park our boulder to help a fellow with theirs. Sometimes people put stuff in front of our boulder, or the landscape changes unexpectedly. Occasionally we get run over by the boulder and badly hurt.

In America we do get some choice in the boulder and the hill we choose. Some want a little boulder, and a little hill. Others want a great big boulder, and a mountain. Usually the bigger problems we solve, and the bigger the challenges and the more people we help along the way, the greater the rewards. People use different tools to help themselves and others to get up the hill. I’m building some fences to help with my boulder, and so I can help other people along the way. What are you using?

- Ken

What Sets Us Apart

Custom Builds: Every fence is measured and built on-site. No kits, no shortcuts.

Local Experience: We know Colorado’s soil, weather, and permitting rules—and we build for all of them.

Top-Tier Materials: We use Western Red Cedar, stainless steel fasteners, and premium-grade pickets.

Warranty Backed: Every project is covered by a written warranty. No fine print.

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