By Josh Resnek
The president wants to build a wall, so do the directors of Parlin House on Church Street where an old ledge wall is being replaced by a field stone wall.
This is not an average rehab job.
This is expert, buffalo style hard work in demolishing the old wall and in building the new wall.
The Gerrior Company employees are working with ledge, stones, cement, sand – and if you think work is hard for you, then check out what these stone masons do!
The field stone being used is “Boston Blend”, according to Joe Gerrior, the owner of the company bearing his family name doing the reconstruction.
Gerrior has been at it for almost three decades. He knows what he’s doing. He loves his work. He said he loves his 24 employees, all Muslim and all from Kosovo.
“What we do is all about precision but it is also about family,” Gerrior said.
Most of the men have been working with him for two decades.
Gerrior’s equipment shines.
Ten men are working. He has five pieces of heavy equipment at the site.
“I don’t lease. I own. I keep my equipment in top shape. I am always worried about how we look on a site. I’ve always wanted to stand for quality. How we do what we do speaks for itself. The product speaks loudest of all,” he said with pride looking at the new bit of wall that went up.
By the end of this week, Gerrior had completed half the wall.
“The look is good. We’ve done it properly digging deeper, putting in drainage, using environmentally sound products.
This wall will last another hundred years,” Gerrior said.
It will probably last a lot longer than that!