In a message dated 1/28/2004 writes:
Great stuff from Ken and John Friedrichs ,
Johns following quote exceptional

> .......my way of making a good living in masonry has been to do =
> a really good job at jobs that other masons dont want to touch,sorta the =
> brainsurgury of masonry!stonework,restration of very old structures,morto=
> r analysis and duplcation,highly detailed work,and work that needs close =
> communication with the client are the ways that ive enjoyed my self fot a=
> lmost 20 years now and made a good living at it to boot///////////////id =
>  ...Im with you my brother
and Ruth ; I believe you have some exceptional masons and carvers in Barre Vt

as for me ( you may want to read this at your leisure)

I stated out with rocks in my head (literally)
as a teenager I had to go to work in the mines; my ma-ma was gone and my
daddy(southern for dad)  remarried with new family with no time for the young and
the restless.
 In those days the only bricks I was interested in moving was the ones from
California so to make a long story short
I ended up in a mine and the mine ended up on me  .

A year later after three operations on my eye and leg I was out of hospital
and on my way to Scotland where a no nonsense auntie got me to apprentice with
the old guys (stonecutters and restoration setters)
 five  years later after working on nothing less than 200 yr old projects I
was a journeyman mason; ( not to be confused with a  master mason as that  is
someone who is calpable of building a cathedral by himself)
I returned to N.Y and got into the union through a contractor payoff  where
after a contractor gets a job the union muscles the lucky fellow to either
take their guys or sign everyone up and still have to take their guys.

There were alot of sweet gentlemen in those days . The Westies (enforcers for
big Paul ) ran the riggers and delegated the number of stones you were to set
in a day,leg breakers and loan sharks by nature; preservation was something
the mortician did,

Sammy the Bull another lovely fellow picked up the vig (% of contract)from
every city job over $250,000 (half million in todays economy) the teamsters ran
the gate like it was a fiefdom. Non union guys could not get in ;and if they
did they bled for it in real dollars  ; and if they still got in their
equipment would not be there in the morning. Falls from the building were not uncommon


Since dees dems and does did not readily  fit my vocabulary I convinced
myself that I was not suited for such an delicate  educational environment. I had
no uncles,no beard who could vouch for me ,

So when offered a job to be a foreman and project manager for a team of
masons to restore Embassies overseas my bag and tools were packed in 24 hrs and I
said good bye to my dear friends whose day ended when they took "Irish "lunch
everyday at 2pm.

I am still a member of the union 52 out of Chicago ; since RICO was law this
wonderful group of broken noses formerly run by the Cicero crowd is now a mere
shadow of its former self .
Today when I enter their offices Im greeted by warm and fuzzy pictures of
soccer dads and proud  handshakes with Jesse Jackson or Bill Clinton.

Gone are the pictures of race horses and hand shakes with Nixon, Frank
Sinatra, or Pete Rose
 gone are the secretaries with big boobs who snap there gum and look at you
like you can,t afford them ;
gone are the guys who are on somebody's payroll playing pinochle and
collecting the days receipts from the football lotteries.
Alas all gone ....now  we have is steely eyed   beareaucratic micro mangers
who could double as morticians  who pray for a weak democratic president and
spend their time  finding  ways to take more from your check.

On a snowy afternoon one Valentine's Day I came down off the rigs at the
Chicago Tribune building to take a ride with one of the other burly  stone masons
;Since he knows I like monuments he took me to a cemetery over to the South
side ; there hidden by yew trees and boxwoods was a large marble headstone.
Before it laying in the snow was a simple red rose and several tiny American flags
,
I pushed back the Ivy hiding the Inscription, expecting to find some poet
laureate or famous athelete,all it said was... Capone...
Somehow the history of labor and stone in America  became full circle. Pyrate