For my 4th addition to The American Worker Project I decided to include a local icon in my home town of Belgrade Lakes Maine. His name is John Gawler and he is another person that no matter when you see him, he always greets you with a warm smile. He is one of these guys who you’d be hard pressed to find someone who had something negative to say about him… a genuinely good person.
For most of his life John has made his living working in sheet metal which means he works a lot fabricating and installing people’s roofs, making metal chimneys, metal flashings and other things of that nature. Over the years he has worked on pretty much everything from roofs for the locals to high profile jobs for people like Oscar De La Renta doing custom copper work on his New England home. One might imagine that being a roofer in Maine can be tough especially in the winter months but you’d never know it talking to John…. he’s been doing it since he was 17 years old and seems to love every minute of it. Ask him and he will tell you that he has always loved being outdoors and being up high, even as a kid he was always up high in a tree somewhere.
In addition to being a damn fine roofer, John (and his whole immediate family) are extremely talented musicians and entertainers. When I was a kid I remember they used to throw a folk festival called “The Buttermilk Hill Festival” up on their farm every year. Today they regularly perform and play concerts for many of the local community events and elsewhere around the state. They even have a few cd’s with their music on them. But that is yet another story for another day….
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