So instead of getting up for my usual deadline gauntlet run at the office cubicle Friday morning, I went to work for my friend J.K., a local contractor, to help him demolish a 100-year-plus old store front.
Let me tell you, getting up at 7 a.m. to pound the keyboard for a few hours doesn’t even hold a stress-relieving candle to the therapeutic value gleaned from smashing down a brick wall with a sledge hammer.
J.K., known to a few as John Kelly, has been a local carpenter for the last three decades and began his own solo business, Kelly’s Fine Wood Working, 13 years ago.
I have to admit, I liked J.K. and the job the second I arrived that morning. Unlike some Punching the Clock hosts who take it easy on us, he had a different approach.
After exchanging greetings, I asked what I’d be doing that day. “Well, you see that hammer over there and did you see the brick wall and concrete floor out front?”
Not having a physically challenging job myself, I’m one of those who revel in the occasional bout with labor intensive work, especially when it involves bare handed destruction of property.
And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, J.K.’s close friend and occasional contracting partner Mark Dalrymple leaned over and picked up a jackhammer.
“And if you want, you can take a shot at it with this too,” he said.
Mark also runs his own contracting company, New Construction Company, known to many as N.C.C.
In a line of work that varies greatly from job to job, the two friends will seek the other’s aid in larger projects, and such was the case on this particular one.
Both men are credentialed master carpenters who have dedicated a life long career to the trade. Mark began learning the trade when he was 21. “That was a few decades ago,” joked Mark, who still makes swinging a sledge hammer and pounding concrete look easy.
“Once you’ve done this work for as long as we have, you learn how to pace yourself,” said Mark, offering advice I neglected to take.
Less than 10 minutes after arriving, I felt the first drops of sweat start to roll off my face. They really knew how to pour concrete back in the day and breaking it up was like dismantling a bomb shelter.
I also got to knock down the two-foot high brick wall surrounding the store front and then took the jack hammer from Mark, who had begun chipping away at the concrete floor removing four- to six-inch chunks at a time.
I rattled away at the slab, working back and forth along its edge. It was like holding a lawn mower while have a seizure. The chunks of concrete then fell into pile of debris which we shoveled up into a nearby wheelbarrow and emptied into a large steel trash bin. Using the shovel and our hands, for the larger pieces, we removed several feet of four-inch thick concrete in an hour and a half, 5 to 20 pounds at a time.
My hands blistered, shoulders strained, and my clothes were covered in dust and clumps of airborne debris clung to sweat-soaked skin. J.K. told me demolition was the most labor -intensive part of the job. It was, strangely, very satisfying.
The two storefronts we were working on along North Broad Street used to be the All American Sports Shop and the Corner Cigar Store. J.K. and Mark are now transforming the building into a law office for Adam J. Spence, a local attorney.
Adam stopped by the site to joke with the guys and poke fun at a reporter “doing real work.”
Adam himself removed much of the concrete earlier in the week using his own jackhammer.
“Trust me, I more than know how you feel,” he said, feeling up his arm and patting his shoulder.
Although we were working on taking down the store front Friday, both men said they typically did other kinds of work.
“Well because of the economy, I’m doing things these days I haven’t done in a long time,” said J.K.
The only complaint J.K. had about his line of work was the lack thereof.
“I hate struggling for work. So many people seem to be coming into the contracting business these days. People get laid off and they hang a hammer loop from their belt and call themselves contractors. That’s alright I suppose, as long as people don’t confuse them with the guys like me and Mark, experienced professionals who’ve been doing this kind of work pretty much all our lives,” said J.K.
Mark and J.K. said they had both separately encountered defensive customers in the past who had bad past experiences with hiring contractors.
“I’m afraid that some of these guys are the ones to give the rest of us a bad name. There are some bad ones out there, that’s for sure,” he said.
J.K. said he rarely has to advertise because he’s been doing the work for so long that his customer base often recommends him to their friends and family. “That’s the best advertisement I know of,” he laughed.
“I do like my job and what I like about it is that most of the time I work with people who allow me to operate freely. They know I know what I’m doing. I thinks it’s important to do good work. It says more to people than anything I could ever say to them,” he said.