32 min 5 sec | Posted on: 09 November '21

 BRUNT Bucket Talk Podcast 20 with Terry and Kyle Dutton

Terry & Kyle Dutton

Meet Terry and Kyle Dutton, the father and son tag team duo that spends their days cutting stone by hand. Based in Rockport, MA, they have accumulated a large social media following by sharing with the world laborious footage of their hand splitting process and stone masonry. In this special episode of Bucket Talk, Jeremy and Eric visit the duo for our very first on-site interview, as the Rockport team works on finishing a retaining wall and walkway. Tune in as we learn about their family’s humble beginnings in stonework, hand splitting, and the rich history behind American stone masonry, among other topics.

 

Going back to 1969, Terry got his start in masonry after returning from Vietnam. Him and his wife bought their first home with money he had never spent while in the military. Terry needed a retaining wall built on the side of his property. After asking a few masons, he was shocked at the price of the project and decided that he could do it himself. Terry began taking trips to the nearby quarry to collect small pieces of material from the discard pile to build his wall. 

 

“I ran into the person that used to own the quarry called Pearson... He's like, so son, what are you doing? And I'm like, ‘Well, I'm trying to build a little wall in my side yard.’ And he looked at me and he said, ‘Anybody willing to climb up and down the pile that much to put stones in their truck - God bless you, you can have all you want.’ And he gave me a few pointers on how things were cut in and everything else.”

 

From there, Terry attracted the attention of neighbors and friends who saw his stone work and started inquiring about small projects. He began working with different types of materials and finding a deeper understanding of masonry. As time went on, Terry refined his stone work skills and began building his lifelong career in the trade.

 

“The real stone work didn't start till probably 25 or 30 years ago, when I really, really started to understand the process that was involved in cutting, trimming and fitting the way it should be. It's kind of sad. It's one of those things where if you go back and look at some of the work you did 40 or 45 years ago, you're like, wow, I could have done that so much better.”

 

Terry’s son, Kyle, has been working under his father on and off since high school. Originally, Kyle pursued a college degree in Sports Medicine, and would work with stone on the side. However, he was stopped short after being diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma in his 20’s. After recovery, Kyle eased back into the labor force again by working with his father. Through the years of switching between different jobs, he learned that working with stone is what he enjoys best. 

 

“...at the end of the day you have a literal pile to show for yourself like ‘this is what I did today. This is what we got done today.’ And it's the same thing with building and I find that to be like this incontrovertible satisfaction… At the end of the day, you go home and you sleep well, because you're like, ‘This is what I got done.’”

 

Terry and Kyle started hand splitting stone as part of their core business during a project for Rockport National Bank in 2009. Up until then, they focused strictly on masonry work. For this particular project, they had to source a large quantity of granite from two different quarries. 

 

“Some of the contractors that also do granite work, saw the quality of the material that we were cutting for the project, and asked us if we could in turn cut material for them if they needed it. And it blossomed from there initially…  to the part that it is now where it's at least half of our time is spent cutting stone.”

 

Part of what drives Terry and Kyle is their shared passion for masonry and the rich history behind the trade. American stonework dates back centuries in time to when many of the modern tools were not available. While it is often taken for granted at face value, those who are familiar with the trade can recognize the skill and labor that was required.

 

“It's crazy that the reach of this stuff and again, you know, all of this was done back in the late 18, early 1900s, talking about... getting it to the trains via oxen. And the big gerrymander carts... you look at the history, and even just what that took in labor and manpower just to even get started. It's really neat.”

 

To an onlooker, hand splitting stone might seem like cruel and torturous work. It’s not an easy job in any sense. But for Terry and Kyle, the intense labor is highly rewarding and driven by passion. Through decades of hard work and dedication, the father and son duo have become rock stars in the fascinating world of masonry.

 

 

View Transcript

Jeremy Perkins 0:04

This is Jeremy and Eric with bucket talk powered by BRUNT. Today we're here with Rockport cut granite, a father and son team, Terry and Kyle. And this was our first off site podcast learning more about what they do with granite and masonry. But before we jump off, Eric, what's been going on?



Eric Girouard 0:24

This is bucket top weekly podcast where people who work in the trades and construction that aren't just trying to survive, but have the ambition and desire to thrive. The opportunity to trade and construction is absolutely ridiculous right now. So if you're hungry, it's time to eat. We discuss what it takes to rise from the bottom to the top with people who are well on their way and roll up their sleeves every single day. So last week, we had an exciting week. It was crazy for Brant and Jeremy are a part of it. But I guess the highlight of the week was Thursday night we had some of our good friends at outdoor pride landscape and snow management, which is one of the largest landscaping and snow management companies in New Hampshire. They've got 75 employees and offseason and go up to like 250 and of the the current team, they wanted to reward the top performers. And so they came down to the Bronk ROG a Thursday afternoon. And and



Jeremy Perkins 1:23

yeah, we're slinging burgers, we're talking to them about I guess fall and, and the snow season kind of ramps up for them. They push a lot of snow kind of resonates with me because being a plow driver, I got to sit down and talk with a whole bunch of guys on how they do things. I'm jumping out of the residential snow game and just really pushing my own snow at the farm. But what's cool to be able to rub elbows with the normal Joes and get down to, to how they do things and how their operations are gone. They got some pretty cool equipment or talk to Bill and how they operate. And it was a pretty good time throwing some bags and



Eric Girouard 1:57

Yep, good night to relax and for our team and their team to kind of hang out and spend some time together. And my guess is there's probably a lot more in store for us in the future. And yeah, it was definitely definitely a fun time.



Jeremy Perkins 2:08

Yeah, hashtag one team one. There



Eric Girouard 2:10

you go. Alright, let's get into it.



Jeremy Perkins 2:15

Today's bucket talk episode, we have Kyle and Terry of Rockport Cut Granite. Welcome, guys. Thank



Unknown Speaker 2:20

you very much.



Jeremy Perkins 2:21

We're here in Gloucester. On site right or Rockport? We're in? We're in Rockport, on the edge of Gloucester, and you guys were at a job site today. And what are you guys doing



Kyle Dutton 2:31

here? We are doing a bunch of different things. We're doing a retaining wall and a walkway. And we're shoring up some of the existing work that's on site here that needed some rehab. Awesome.



Jeremy Perkins 2:41

So tell us a little history about how you guys got into this. Gn o as far back as you want to go



Terry Dutton 2:46

myself, Kyle and my daughter Aaron did the it is now the cape and savings bank at the time it was the Rockport National Bank at the top of the hill by the gas station in Rockport in 2009. Uh, we quarried the material for that bank at two different locations, one at Johnson's quarry, and the other at a very small quarry on the Rockport Gloucester line called grumble ads. And what happened up until then, we were pretty much strictly masonry. But we had to supply somewhere between 15 and 1800 square feet for that project in when we put it there on site. Some of the contractors that also do granite work, saw the quality of the material that we were cutting for the project, and asked us if we could in turn cut material for them if they needed it. And it blossomed from there initially, like any project or any business, it didn't start out as a full time, every day, whatever, what would happen is we'd still do the masonry work. But if we finished a job early, or if we had an interim period between jobs, we'd go to the quarry and cut and build up an inventory. And it slowly went from there to the part that it is now where it's at least half of our time is spent cutting stone.



Kyle Dutton 4:05

Okay, you should tell them one of my favorite stories, though, is how you got into stone masonry and the retaining wall on the side of the yard,



Terry Dutton 4:13

right when I first got out of the army, which was 1969, my wife and I bought a house with the money that I saved, that I never spent when I was in Vietnam for a year. And I needed a retaining wall on the side of the property. And when I asked two or three Masons at the time, what it would cost naturally, it was a shock for me at the time, and I knew that Johnson's quarry was available in respect to getting materials so I started doing the wall myself and a couple things happened number one, it took me a year and a half to do a wall which probably should have taken me a month but the second thing is I went into what we call the growth pile the quarry which is the material that they discarded back then and I would constantly come into the back of the pile and load the smaller pieces that I wanted for the job in my truck. And as it turned out one of the days where I was loading them, I ran into the person that used to own the quarry called Pearson, who was the son in law of the original Lennar Johnson, that started the quarry. And he came down. He's like, so son, what are you doing? And I'm like, Well, I'm trying to build a little wall on my side yard. And he looked at me and he said, anybody can willing to climb up and down the pile that much to put stones in the truck. God bless you, you can have all you want. And and he gave me a few pointers on on how things were cut in and everything else. But that was the first process. I do not believe that I ever cut one stone for the wall on my side yard. I just fit them as best I could. I had no tools to cut with at the time. I had no real ability at the time. And it kind of went from there. It's a learning process, folks. It really really is.



Kyle Dutton 6:06

That wall still stands actually, by the way. It's still retains his sign yarn. And one of the neat things is he didn't even have a joining tool the time. So use this thumb. It's my old thumb to do the joints in between the wall. It's amazing.



Terry Dutton 6:18

I still have a they can do fingerprints on my thumb.



Eric Girouard 6:22

Did you ever have to go back and put a little work into it? Or is it no



Terry Dutton 6:25

I should at this point. There's a couple areas on the driveway where I'm sure it has to do with the salt from the vehicles and everything else? Yes. Yeah. Kind of eaten away a little bit of cement but not a problem. Wow. That's incredible. Structurally, it's still aesthetically it needs a little needed.



Eric Girouard 6:41

Keep out on the base. There you go. Yeah, awesome. Okay, so that was how you kind of had got the start. And then I guess give us a little bit of a jump from the first project to optic kind of more than currency.



Terry Dutton 6:52

Well, what happened is, you know, as I started doing the the stone work in the yard, a couple of different people saw the stone work, and they really liked what we were doing. And they asked me to do some small projects for them while I was on the fire department, and it blossomed into more and more to do with concrete block. And brick. The real stone work didn't start till probably 25 or 30 years ago, when I really, really started to understand the process that was involved in cutting, trimming and fitting the way it should be. It's kind of sad. It's one of those things where if you go back and look at some of the work you did 40 or 45 years ago, you're like, wow, I could have done that so much better.



Jeremy Perkins 7:41

Don't get me wrong, other than the technology that you have in the drills, the process of cutting and mining, granite is still the same as it was five years old.



Terry Dutton 7:51

Today in some of the larger quarries, they use big saws and stuff like that a lot of the stuff is saw cut, and then processed in the shop. Back here, everything was what we call drilled and they would drill the holes, put the wedges in the half rounds in and split the stone. Now, understand this, and I've said this to many people, the rotary hammers that we use, our smallest rotary hammer will put a drill hole in in about 20 seconds. Okay, back then, you kind of kind of laugh at this. But back then when I ran into Karl Pearson, at the beginning of my tenure up there, I was drilling a hole by hand, which you would have a drill and you would do like a little quarter turn each time that you hit it so it wouldn't hit in exactly the same spot. And you had a three pound hammer, on the other hand and call came down. And he's like, So how you doing? And I'm like, good cow, I found that I can do a hole in about five minutes. He goes, Wow, that's not too bad. The old timers used to do it in three.



Jeremy Perkins 8:59

But I mean, that's little reward for the task at hand. I mean,



Kyle Dutton 9:03

labor was cheap back then. There's a lot of men in the pit, you know, and the real unsung heroes, I think are the blacksmiths back then because there was no carbine, everything was steel. And there were boys like in their teens whose sole job was to climb up and down out of the pit and bring the tools to the blacksmith shop



Terry Dutton 9:20

a drill back then a temporary drill would last for no more than five holes. Wow. So I mean, you can see that the amount of time that had to be spent by the blacksmith in the shop recovering in you know, dressing the edges up to make them the way they needed to be to cut. Everything today is carbide. The traces that we use today have a carbide tip back then it was the same thing. They had to be re tempered and how long would they last? Maybe they get an hour, hour and a half, two hours out of it with some serious work. Okay, and then back to the shop again. Back to the shop,



Eric Girouard 9:58

so I know less about Less than anyone but I always see it on Instagram, you always see people with the wedges in this stone and the videos go viral because it's hard laboring work, give me a little education on stone, because my assumption is stone could split a bunch of remains. But it seems like everything. Stone has either veins, or how does that work?



Terry Dutton 10:16

We call it the Rift, which is the easiest way to split a piece of stone. And sometimes it's very, very obvious and a piece of stone, there's other times I'm looking at a piece of stone, and it just scratched my head. But that's by far the easiest way. The second easiest way is if you cut parallel to the top and the bottom of the stone, that's called the secondary, okay, but it's like a piece of wood. I've said to many people, stone splits like wood, the easy way is to split it from the end. But you can take that wedge, and you can turn it in any direction and split it from the end, okay, but you can't split it from the side, a stone is similar. Once you do your initial split with the what we call the Rift, the secondary allows you to go in almost any direction, as long as it's parallel to the top of the bottom. And



Kyle Dutton 11:07

for the people listening, a good way to visualize this is when the granite solidified and did so in two layers, like a sheet cake. Imagine you take that cake and you're trying to split it along those frosting lines. And if you're going parallel to that, it's always going to give you a reasonable expectation of a good split.



Eric Girouard 11:24

So now walk us through. You started this a long time ago, we talked to some folks. The last thing they want is their kids get in a business other people want their kids to get into business. How did you guys bridge this whole journey?



Kyle Dutton 11:34

Oh, for me, when I very much first joined the workforce at 14 and a half. I was working actually in a grocery store down in Rockport Rockport IgA, which was, you know, it was actually a formative experience for me. And a lot of people I know, it was a rite of passage, first job. Once I started going, I think it was either very late high school, or once I started going to college, it was easier for me to come back and work with dad, you know, it's just was easier to jump in and join him. And I had plans to go off and get a degree I didn't know in one. At first, I foolishly thought I was going to do aerospace engineering, because it sounded cool. And the prospect was for a lot of money. My math skills were not that good. You know, I think anything beyond Algebra Two starts to get a little tenuous. And I just could not keep up with some of the other students who really mean differential equations and all that really crazy stuff that looks like symbols and Jibberish. And I was a little discouraged with that. And then I went and tried to apply myself to a different major. But what actually happened is I had some health issues in my 20s, I actually was diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma in my soft palate, which was a cancerous tumor, which was treated back I think, right when we had done that out. And in 2009, after we either, I think right after we completed the bank job, and that knocked me kind of off course, that was a whole road in and of itself. And basically, once I felt well enough to kind of start working again, same thing, it was easy to work with dad, and to kind of get back on my feet that way. And kind of just slowly molded into you know, there was times I left in kind of did my own thing. But then you just kind of realize that this is what you really enjoy doing. And when really enjoy spending time with him too, in the last probably five years was when we really kind of partnered up and made it into what it is now. And I think what is it the last three or four years was when we started the Instagram. And when we actually kind of gotten the traction as far as what we are now, which is good because it's been 11 years since I was diagnosed. I've been in remission since then. And things are all seem to be well. Now it's just kind of us going forward and seeing what we can do. It wasn't my plan. But I'm actually very happy with where I landed. Yeah. Like so many Pete like so many. Yeah, exactly. Well, it's



Jeremy Perkins 13:49

rewarding. You know, there's a lot of sweat equity and your sisters involved with this too. All of



Kyle Dutton 13:53

them paid their dues. The oldest sister's got paid by the brick, clean and brick for Dad and then get paid by the brick. Yeah. And what you said is really important. One of the things I tried to do in school and this is what happened when I got sick, I was doing sports medicine at Salem State, which was a pretty neat gig, you get to watch sports. And the only problem is unlike him who was a paramedic and can deal with this stuff. I don't do well when people's knees are going the wrong way. Especially the guy that runs out and just blends them and helps them out. And like once on the tape comes off. Like when you help an athlete recover from an injury back to like that 99% of what they were pre injury. That was really rewarding. But a lot of the time you're just handing out Gatorade, and like ice bags and like wrapping and this is not to diminish the profession. Like it wasn't real. It wasn't for me actually having like a literal pile or a wall or something like when you cut stone you at the end of the day you have a literal pile to show for yourself like this is what I did today. This is what we got done today. And it's the same thing with building and I find that to be like this incontrovertible satisfaction that like you It's so tangible. You know, your job is very tangible in that sense. At the end of the day, you go home and you sleep well, because you're like, This is what I got done.



Jeremy Perkins 15:07

So both of you had very different entry points. Just listening to stories. One of the words that come to mind for me for you, is persistence. Like you wanted this retaining wall. It was too expensive. But yeah, you kept at it and you persevered by, you know, now you have this beautiful retaining wall. And it didn't matter how long it took you. For you. It was more getting back to family and being around family. What would something you tell somebody a new hire, what would you want to see in them?



Kyle Dutton 15:33

What can we tell them, we had a wonderful hire this last summer, a college student by the name of Adam, I think the literal first things I told him was bring water in sunblock, which is, which is still probably the best advice that I can give to anyone who's looking to get into these kind of trades. It's a mentality. And not every day is easy. It's a lot of hard work. I know, one of his first days, we were swapping out one of the four foot tires on the backhoe. And it happened to be like 101 degrees up at the pit. And I think both of us almost passed out in the process of trying to get the studs lined up with the holes. And I know he can find it in me after that, that that day had him a little shook. He wasn't sure if that was really what he wanted to do. But it's like, you know, once you get through the really hard stuff, and you're able to lift the weight, you're able to move the stuff, and your body kind of hardens up to the task, I think he's starting to get that same sense of physical satisfaction from a hard job well done.



Terry Dutton 16:27

Yeah. And, and the the other thing, make no mistake, you know, if somebody is going to do this type of work, they have to do it because they want to do it. You know, I think Kyle and I would be lying, if we didn't say that ego comes into it, you have the ability to do something that very, very few people have ever been able to do. And you're doing something that has such a rich history, that, you know, when you look at things like that, you're like, wow, you know, the modern tools, or the modern tools, when you go to a quarry now everything is so on. Everything is done this way. And that way. It's not done the old school way. And and the fact that we're still able to do it that way. It just it. It's very egotistical.



Kyle Dutton 17:20

We were at Kronplatz. One time, we had I forget if it was a landscaper, or someone was coming to pick up stone and he had a helper with him. And you know, we look up because they're the way the pit was set up. And you're kind of down a couple of shelves like 20 feet below the top. And you look up and they're just looking down at you. And you know, we were doing something either a big split, something was covered in sweat. And you're like yeah, what do you think in the helper was like, this looks like what they make prisoners do. And to someone who's not like Dad said, it's like if you're not really interested in it, and you don't have that, you know, drive to do something like this, it very much kind of is it's like, well, you know, you might as well be shackled by the leg. And yeah, it's just hard work. It's



Eric Girouard 18:01

not a job, you want to show up and punch a time clock and get your hourly wage.



Kyle Dutton 18:05

You're just looking to get in and get out. There's many easier trade ins. Yeah, but Dad also hit on the really important part like him and I are both junkies when it comes to the history aspect of it. And you see it all around here and all these walls that are hundreds of years of history of people coming over to this country to make a better life for themselves. Finnish and Swedes going into the pits and working very hard, and creating something that lasted longer than themselves.



Terry Dutton 18:33

We we we look at certain things when we drove around that impressed the living crap out of us, because we know how hard it was for them to get that type of material and to dress it up and put it in place the way they did. Okay,



Jeremy Perkins 18:52

yeah, I mean, when we were coming in, I was reminiscing about so I grew up in Western Mass, and we had the brownstone and the redstone quarries out there, and everything from the school to the library. Everything was brownstone and redstone and you know, we had quarries all throughout East Longmeadow that we went swimming in whatever and they all since been shut down. But we were digging up brownstone read but they ship this stuff out everywhere. You know, I think they opened up a quarry just so that one of the famous buildings in the United States could get redone a few



Terry Dutton 19:22

years ago we actually got a request from the state of New York they would redoing I think it was the Holland Tunnel or something like that. And they only come for material to saw cut for the sides of the tunnel. You know, I mean, you know every once in a while you get these really really strange requests. Sometimes you can do something with them. Sometimes we can't when they did the salt and pepper bridge in Boston. They called us about material but the quantity that they wanted was unsupplyable by us. We actually refer them to biz read it old knowing when granite II and he ended up getting that contract. The other



Kyle Dutton 19:58

thing is the streets of Broadway in New York, they used to say they were paved with gold. They weren't they were paved with cave and granite. And that was really good cobblestone material, because it's so hard. Yeah, it's really durable stone. So it's everywhere. It's crazy that the reach of this stuff and again, you know, all of this done back in late 18, early 1900s, talking about, you know, getting it to the trains via oxen. And the big gerrymander carts, almost like a long skitter, where you'd have a pull out the front that was at elevation as they pulled in, it would pull down so it would lift the front of the stone up and they could drag it huge wooden wheels and unbelievable and setting up derricks, they'd have anecdotal stories of they'd have all been the one wire strung and thing would fall over. And then finally, when they get the derrick up, and the wires are still quivering, and some of the old timers and say, it'll be there until hell freezes over. And I mean, even at you know, Johnsons is one of the few places to have standing antique Derek's in town. And Aaron, actually, really, I think, outside of Vermont, and it'll be interesting to see if and when they ever come down, you know, you can't take him down, you have to leave him up in their head from a liability, but you look at the history, and even just what that took in labor and manpower just to even get started. It's really neat.



Eric Girouard 21:15

Wow. So what's one thing you know, now, in this trade, that you wish you knew when you were just getting anyone you were working with him early days that you're like, Man, if I would have known that, then I would have been a lot easier, a lot better, a lot more efficient? Or?



Kyle Dutton 21:28

I think it's like anything, it's what you don't know, it's knowing what you don't know. You know, it's like, especially earlier in your 20s, you think you have all the answers. It's like, as I get older, I realize he knows more and I know less kind of thing. You know, it's working with your dad, it's something that sometimes you have to be patient with each other. Every day is different. And every day is a good day. It doesn't mean we don't butt heads from time to time, but it's working through any of those issues is is important. And at the end of the day, we do something that so many people, even people who comment on our Instagram, say they say, You're so lucky to be able to work with your dad every day. And it's true. Yeah, yeah,



Terry Dutton 22:03

I think I one thing would be, if you're not willing to go to work every day, with the idea that you're going to learn something new on that particular day, then you're making a mistake, we do things today that we look at some times where like, I didn't see that happening, it is what it is. And part of it is when one goes back to what the old timers did, the knowledge that they had, and the ability that they had to see certain things within the stone itself. Constantly blow us away, you know, we'll cut a piece and all of a sudden over hit what appears to be a natural seam inside or something like that. They saw that that's why they put it in the waste pile. They could see it, we couldn't see it, but they could Yeah, and those are the things that you have to be aware of that every day is something new. It really really is, you know,



Jeremy Perkins 22:59

alright, so enough of work outside of all of this, which it seems like you guys actually really enjoy the time spent together and, and you guys enjoy the work itself. What do you guys like to do?



Kyle Dutton 23:09

We go home and go to bed. You know, certainly, like anything. There's a lot of times you go home and post about work and stuff like that. But no, in my free time. No, I go to the renaissance fairs with my partner, Emily, and I burgeoning like medieval or not real medieval but like replica medieval collector, Midwest, Massachusetts right now. Okay, Richard. Yeah, we went down there to what is it two weekends ago? Yep. Yeah, I'm putting together my costume for next year, I'm in the middle of losing a little bit of weight. I didn't want to buy anything fancy until I'm kind of where I want to be. And, you know, just I got to be English Bulldogs. And they keep me pretty occupied. And that's something that I'm very much fits kind of like, you know, my profession having those two dogs, but you know, it's like, after a good long day of work, there's really nothing better than kind of going back and, you know, kicking back, although I spend a lot of it at the gym right now trying to get back into shape. But, you know, it's like relaxing and just kind of unwinding.



Eric Girouard 24:10

Awesome, awesome. Have yourself,



Terry Dutton 24:12

I self. I spent many, many, many years. I mountain bike with a bunch of guys. Some of them are really, really really good and eat a lot myself and one of the kids I ski with we went to Whistler and black home a few years ago and one of the architects that I work with, we went to Chile one summer there winter is our summer. Oh yeah, it was kind of funny because here we are. I think it was the end of July because it was just after my birthday and now we are on the line at Logan skis on our shoulders. Some little wise ass kid says hey guys, don't you know there's no snow in the mountains right now. But that was that was unique was a whole different experience.



Eric Girouard 25:00

pretty active in your off time, even though this is pretty rigorous, pretty pretty.



Kyle Dutton 25:03

He's one of those people who's been top percentile of fitness through his whole life. And that's why he's able to do this the way he does, you know, he's 74 years young. And it's still hard to keep up with him. Some days,



Terry Dutton 25:15

we do attribute the work to know when I was on the fire department. And as I said, when I first got out of the service, I took the test, I was lucky enough to be the first one they hired, you know, a atop the list. And I did that for almost 27 years. And I was adamant at the time, much to the issue that I worked really, really hard to stay in shape, I would either lift or run at least six days a week. And you get into that magical area. Look, guys, I hate to be critical. You pay firefighters, you pay police a certain amount of money to perform a safety task, they should be in shape to perform that. And I know I got in trouble with some of the guys I worked with, because they didn't like the fact that I would criticize. And it's not fair because I'll tell a really, really sad story, one of the policemen that lived just down the hill from my mother and father. His name was Andy. And he was on a road detail one day. And the other policeman at the other end, his name was cherry. Okay. And I went by Andy, and I hauled it out the window. I said, Tell Jerry size 10. And I drove away. And on the way back by I did it again. So on my third time by Andy pulled me over. He goes, Why should I tell Jerry size 10? I says Tom, that's the size of his shoes. He hasn't seen him in years. So you know, that's it. It's not fair sometimes. But it's true. Yeah, exactly. And make no mistake, make no mistake, one can perform at a better level. Let's be totally honest. 111 stays in shape. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to get winded tying your shoes in the morning, you have a problem. Yeah, okay. Yeah. And I don't care who you work for. They should come to expect a certain amount of performance out of you in the course of a day. Yep. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And that makes it difficult sometimes. Yeah. No,



Kyle Dutton 27:23

I can relate that to myself, though. Like, you know, one of the things that I wanted to make sure I ate enough of after I got sick was food, because it was something new with my mouse. And you're like, Well, I want to make sure I eat all the foods I want, just in case something goes wrong. Yeah. You know, what if that was one of those things that's important to me. But like anything, eat too much good food. Yeah. rich food and strong drink. Yeah. And up to a certain point, having a little extra ballast for masonry is not bad. You can like put a stone on your belly. And you do you get to a point where you're starting to fight yourself. Yeah. And get winded by things. And you're like, Yeah, I need to kind of rein this in and make some adjustments here. Because if you'd like dad has always said, If you do not keep yourself in good shape doing this type of work, it gets a lot worse. Yeah, it's



Terry Dutton 28:09

tough. Yeah, tough. It really, really is. And even at that over a period of time, you know, the joints, the shoulders, you know, the constant picking up of weight, you know, any doctor would tell you it's not good for you, over a long period of time. It really, really not. Yeah, yep.



Eric Girouard 28:25

You know, oh, this is incredible. This is incredible. One First, thanks for having us out on a site today. We want to want to give you guys as much exposure as possible just to share more about the trade in this one of the best places for folks to kind of follow you guys. Yeah, you're on site on Instagram or no, yes.



Kyle Dutton 28:39

It's we used to have our own site. It was a small little what was it? GoDaddy Website. You know, I think Sherry Lynn, our oldest sister, my oldest sister's, set it up. And she made a great website. But it was one of those things intended to get us this was no fault of hers, but we tend to get weird requests. Oh, you have any like black granite or other granite said nothing to do with caveman granite. Social media went very quickly from us, for me and kind of like a little side shows thing to being this huge thing for us full spiritually, energetically and economically. People were very interested, you get people like Justin Peterson stone sourcer, who are extremely passionate about the different materials, the history, the heritage of those materials, how it came to be. And when people found out that this material was still available, because for a long time, it seemed like a dead format if you just couldn't get it, the amount of people that have come out that we've been able to meet such as you guys. It's like coming out to meet people like minded people, passionate people has been tremendous. You know, this is one of those things. I laugh because when the phone used to first come out to film videos, you can almost see the hair on his neck stand up. And because it was just one of those, you know, it's like oh, instead of having my hands on doing something, got the phone and I'm filming. And now the excitement when we have a big nice split to come up and it's like, oh, let's get the phone set. Yeah. All right now, you Instagram has been our prime driver, although we've had some really lucky hits on Facebook where we've had videos get 3 million views on Facebook rivaled only by some of those guys out there in I think, you know, out there in Asia who are like splitting huge boulders and stuff like that, to have that kind of numbers go up for a video and something that's really, you know, I mean, likes and views shouldn't be all you care about, but it certainly makes you feel good. Yeah, it's



Terry Dutton 30:26

kind of nice when you know, you get somebody that says congratulations from Sweden. You know what I mean, to know that there's other people in other parts of the world that probably doing something very, very, very similar to what we do. And appreciate the fact that it's still done. Yeah, no, I



Kyle Dutton 30:43

mean, there's guys in Portugal that are going real hard in the quarries, doing some awesome stuff. And we get pictures, we got pictures from Austria, of, you know, one of the bigger quarries where they've got these massive blocks and these huge front end loaders when they have to tandem them with the loaders to pick up these giant blocks. And yeah, it's like a, you know, I don't want to use specifically fraternity because this is something we believe anyone can do this, but the fellowship that you have from these other people, and again, the common passion that drives you. And we've met so many people, and due to the way that we post that we meet people, and one of the nicest things we hear is like, even though I'm just meeting you for the first time in person, I feel like we're already friends. Yeah. Like, that's a really nice feeling to get from. Yeah, you know, it's like, and they're used to seeing us do our thing. We try to always be authentic, and you know, who we are on social media is who we are in real life. This is just what we do. And that's really been awesome for us. So if people want to follow us, check us out on either Instagram or Facebook, both under Rockport grant.



Eric Girouard 31:45

Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for having us and we're gonna share the story. And as folks come in through us, we'll send them over and directing



Unknown Speaker 31:51

your way. Thank you so much. I



Unknown Speaker 31:52

love it. Thanks, guys.