According to his own myth, Dad was thrown out of High School at age 16 by a belligerent nun. He had a violent altercation with her and off he went. He was walking down the street and his uncle saw him, asked why he was not in school, and immediately took him onto a construction job. Dad's family had been masons for generations. He was apprenticed then and there and still knew more about bricks and masonry than anyone I have ever met into his later years. He was genuinely passioate about the subject.
Although I remain to this day a frustrated brick layer - he refused to train a woman brick layer - he described the method for springing an arch and some other things pretty well - well enough for me to understand masonry better than most. Nowadays I slow down before masonry - new [the building going up nearby in Harlem] and old [churches in Milan and Ticino].
This photo is Dad on a construction site. He loved it. The stories overflowed from him - learning about Italian lunches from the other masons, the integration of construction sites not evident elsewhere in US culture - working for Grace Kelly's dad, meeting cool an famous people in NYC while building there, etc. Grace Kelly's dad, according to dad, saw a younger version of himself in dad and kept lining him up for work - invited him to her debut party in Philly - he was the same age - and kept doting on him until dad tied one on and missed a job. I think that was when he signed on to the Marines.

In this photo, Dad is #11 from the left. You can enlarge it by clicking on it. I love this photo - the rythm of casual poses of the workers and the light. I am very proud that my dad made buildings that live on.