Strike That Joint!

Why would two boys stand spellbound as their father performed a seemingly mundane task? What made them so eager—no, not eager, but desperate—to take on the work for themselves? And why did their father insist they watch him do it over and over again before he’d even consider letting them try?

The slush-like sound of hardened steel scraping against gritty, nearly cured mortar mesmerized us. It formed a gentle rhythm that matched the back-and-forth motion of my father’s arms. He started with both hands, then shifted to one for greater precision. It was as though he was signing his name. Careful. Exact. Distinctive.

Other masons might refer to the tool he used as a brick jointer or a slicker. Our father called it the same thing his father called it: a striker.

It was a long, slender piece of steel with a wooden handle. It looked something like an ice chipper, but the steel bent sharply near the handle before extending into a narrow, tapered blade. This simple instrument was used to shape and finish the mortar joints between bricks.

I still have both my father’s and my grandfather’s strikers. I never used my grandfather’s, but I used my father’s countless times. It was perfectly balanced. With its slender steel blade and offset handle, the striker slid through the joints like a sled through snow.

When my brother and I reached a certain age, our father began taking us along on masonry jobs. At first, we supplied the muscle. We’d carry the bricks. We’d mix the mortar. We’d make sure we knew where all the tools were in case our father needed them.

Eventually, our father let us use his trowel to slop the mortar on one row of bricks and carefully place the next brick on top of it. He was always there, making sure each new brick remained plumb and level.

In a sense, that was the rough work. The wall stood for all to see. But it wasn’t finished. Not by our father’s standards.

When laying bricks, a mason generally puts more mortar between the bricks than the finished joint requires. This allows him to nudge the bricks into alignment. In doing so, the excess mortar oozes out of the joint. Think of what happens when you bite into an Oreo cookie. The pressure brings the cookie wafers closer together, squishing the creamy center and causing it to ooze out the sides.

The finish work involved striking the joints. You couldn’t do that right away. You had to wait for the mortar to firm up, but not completely harden. It had to be stiff enough to hold its shape, yet soft enough that the striker could remove excess material and smooth the exposed joint.

You didn’t want to take off too much mortar. You were basically just shaping the joint. My brother and I couldn’t wait to try. We understood how important it was after watching our father for so long. He had a very deliberate way of striking joints.

As do all masons.

How you finished the joint became your signature as a craftsman. It wasn’t as blatant as carving your initials into a nearly cured concrete slab. (We did that all the time.) It was more understated. You had to know what you were looking for to recognize it.

And not all masons agreed on what this signature should look like. My father and grandfather didn’t agree. And it led to a rather unique compromise.

In 1963, my father built our first house on Abbott Parkway in Blasdell, New York. Kenny and I were too young to help, but between family, friends, and coworkers at the steel plant, my father had plenty of help. (Kenny and I were two and three years old, respectively. We spent our time playing among the stacks of bricks with our soon-to-be next-door neighbors, who were four and five.)

When it came time to lay the bricks, everyone knew my father and grandfather were the experienced masons. Imagine, then, the rest of the crew watching these two experts argue endlessly over how the bricks should be laid. Or, more precisely, how the joints should look.

My father preferred thinner joints while my grandfather preferred wider joints. After extended debate (which is probably too civilized a description of their discourse), they finally agreed on a compromise. My father would lay the bricks and strike the joints at the front of the house. After all, it was his house, and that’s what he wanted people to see when they first drove up to it.

My grandfather would handle the brickwork in the back of the house. This made sense. Our backyard butted up to his backyard. He could see the back of our house from his own house. So every time he looked out his window, he’d see the bricks exactly the way he liked them.

My father would often tell this story to Kenny and me. He emphasized that neither way was right or wrong. It was a matter of the artist’s eye.

Some masons, he told us, don’t even strike the joints. They prefer leaving the excess mortar protruding from the joints, just as it was squeezed out between the bricks.

He explained all this with dispassionate objectivity. There was no right way or wrong way to finish a joint. It was a matter of personal preference.

Of course, that didn’t mean he was going to let his sons do it any way but his.

The day finally arrived. We were working on the brick wall for the patio at our house on Dortmund Circle. After weeks and weeks of manual labor, and after watching our father strike the joints of the bricks we’d laid, he finally turned to us.

“Who’s ready to strike the joints?”

Our not-quite-teenage eyes lit up. We both raised our hands to volunteer. Of course, being the oldest, I got to go first.

I was nervous at first, but my father remained there to provide guidance. He watched every movement of the striker. Every joint. Every stroke. Finally satisfied, he decided I could fly solo. He left for a moment to check on something else.

That’s when it happened. My greatest fear realized.

I accidentally dug out a huge chunk of mortar. That was bad. Instead of the smooth, finished joint my father had demonstrated, I’d left a gaping hole that exposed the interior surfaces of the bricks.

That was worse.

I was scared. I made a big mistake. My brother was scared. He thought we ruined the brick wall.

We debated what to tell our father. Should we try to fix it ourselves? Pretend we hadn’t noticed? There was no hiding the damage. When he returned, I confessed, fully expecting the wrath that was surely about to fall upon me.

What happened next surprised us.

Dad wasn’t mad. He simply said, “That happens sometimes, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

He took the striker from me and used its pointed end to pick up some of the scrap mortar. He shoved it into the crevice I had accidentally gouged into the joint.

“The mortar isn’t fully set, so you can easily repair any mistakes you make when striking,” he reassured us. “That’s one of the good things about striking the joints at just the right time. You can fix what went wrong before everything hardens.”

That was a bigger lesson than just about laying bricks. Our father had spent weeks teaching us how to do something right. In a matter of seconds, he’d taught us what to do when something went wrong.

We were very precise. We waited for the mortar to firm up. Sometimes we tested it because we got impatient. But we never let that impatience tempt us to start the process prematurely.

When we worked the joint with the striker, we did it in the same manner that a potter becomes one with the clay he is shaping. The striker became an extension of our hands. We felt the rhythm as the steel glided against the coarse mortar, gently shaping it until the joint became smooth. What began as a deliberate movement eventually became second nature.

Our father expected his sons to strike the joints his way.

And we did.

We never felt we were leaving our own signature when we struck the joints. We were leaving our father’s. The same careful strokes. The same exacting standards. The same quiet pride in a job well done.

I still have both strikers. My grandfather’s and my father’s. Different hands. Different styles. The same craft.

But our father passed along something more important than his technique.

He taught us that a mistake didn’t have to define the finished work. What mattered was what we did next.

And perhaps that was the finest finishing touch of all.