Appreciation post: Old timer who showed me how to mix mortar by feel

Back in 1998 on a job in Cleveland, I was fresh out of trade school and struggling with mortar that was either too wet or too dry. An old bricklayer named Hank walked over, grabbed a handful, and squeezed it into a ball. He said "son, if it don't hold its shape and still crumble easy, you messed up." He took the time to show me how to adjust the water and sand ratio by just feeling it for 15 minutes. That one interaction stuck with me more than any class I ever took. Has anyone else had a mentor show them a simple trick like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

vera51416h ago

Oh for crying out loud, that's the kind of wisdom you can't buy. Reminds me of the time I tried to learn to make pie crust from a cookbook and ended up with something you could've used as a brick!

king.robin18h ago

Oh man, that's the stuff you can't ever learn from a book or a video. In my experience the best lessons are always the ones that come from someone who actually does the work and just passes it down by feel, not by a manual.

logan_ellis16h ago

You ever try learning how to sharpen a knife from a YouTube video? I did and my first attempt looked like I chewed the edge off. My buddy's grandpa showed me in five minutes by just watching my hands and saying "too much angle, dumbass." That hands-on correction stuck way better than any tutorial ever did.