The Ring Wasn't Real, but the Bookie was Legit. How I Became a Plumber...
In 1979 I dropped out of college, got married, and began going job to job. While in my junior year at Northeastern University, along with 34 of my physical education major peers, I was brought into a room and told that there was only one male gym teacher for boys and one female teacher for girls at every school and that they normally stayed at their jobs for 30 years. The result, no jobs for P.E. Majors. "Change your major!".
When I politely asked if credits for courses like Karate, Tennis, and Psychology of Sport would count in different majors, they abruptly answered "No". I went on "So all the money we paid for those courses was a waste and you just found out about the lack of future P.E. jobs... today?" They did not have a credible response. I left Northeastern unhappy and ready to pursue a different career.
After going job to job, all I really knew was that there were plenty of jobs I didn't want to do for the rest of my life. After a part-time stint at UPS, I ended up driving a canteen truck, better known as a "Roach Coach". I had a route and I made no fewer than 20 stops a day, selling coffee, sandwiches, pizza, hot dogs steamed in beer, candy, juice, soda pop, and cigarettes. It was a different experience and I was having a lot of fun doing it, but it was not a good career choice and I knew that…
My first stop was at 8:00 a.m. at Mass Hospital in Canton, MA, a hospital for handicapped children. There were several kids in wheelchairs who waited with Nurses for my arrival every morning. In addition to them, there was a group of construction workers who were involved in a project that was within an eye-shot of where I parked my food truck.
It was during this time that my father-in-law, a career plumber, and my wife, arranged for me to go with him for one day to experience a day in the life of a plumber.
On that day I went to my in-law's house and met with Irv. At the time my father-in-law was in his early sixties, much like I am today. After serving in the military he spent his entire adult life working in the mechanical trades of plumbing and steam fitting, and you could tell. His forearms were heavily muscled and his hands were much larger than what you'd expect on a 5'7" frame, the result of many years of hard work.
We jumped into his lettered-up Chevy van. It was gold-colored and a much newer model than the green snub-nosed Econoline van I had seen in family photos. The first thing I noticed was that the rear quarter was damaged on the passenger side, the side view mirror was bent, and the glass was missing. My wife told me that it was during the first week of ownership that Irv backed into something and he was so upset he refused to get it fixed. Inside, the van was an absolute mess, the tools and parts mounded in the middle looked like a pile of junk. I found out later that it was Irv's pile of junk and he knew exactly where everything was and it was not to be organized by anyone else, under any circumstances…
On the way to the first job, I listened carefully to Irv, whose voice was difficult to hear because of all the junk rattling around in the back. We were going to an older house owned by a young Doctor who lived near the center of town. Irv smiled as he laid out the job. He was clearly happy to be in the van and on his way to fix a toilet at a good customer's home.
When we arrived Irv told me to grab the blue plastic tool tote in the back of the van. Irv never locked his van nor did he lock the front door of his house. He was a very trustworthy guy and he was trusting of others. He always saw the good in people despite knowing the bad.
We were welcomed into the house by the Doctor's wife and the sound of young children running around behind her in the kitchen. We walked up to the second floor by way of an incredible stairway. It had a dark mahogany handrail and matching spindles that swirled up to the second floor. It was a magnificent stairwell, the kind only found in older homes and probably one of the reasons the Doctor and his wife bought this house.
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We entered the hallway and stopped when we got to the bathroom, which was on our right and had a similarly stained wood door. There it was, the toilet. Call it a "John" or a "Hopper", but our first job of the day was to fix it. This particular toilet was vintage 1940's. Originally tanks were mounted high up on the wall where a long pipe connected them to a floor-mounted bowl. There was a chain that extended down that was pulled to activate the flush. They were designed to flush using at least 5 gallons of water. This one was an updated version of the original. The tank was hung on the wall 8-13" above the bowl where a shorter chromed pipe connected the two pieces of white vitreous china. The 90-degree pipe came with the toilet and was long so the plumber could cut it for a custom fit. You only saw this type of toilet in older homes. Toilets being sold at the time (late 70's early 80's), considered "water savers", were close-coupled, meaning the tank and the bowl were directly connected and only used 3.5 gallons per flush.
Although it looked old and dated, Irv was determined to fix it and not replace it. He took off his navy blue Dickie work jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his matching navy blue Dickie long sleeve shirt. Irv wore navy blue Dickie work uniforms, complete with a matching cap, and low Knapp work shoes. His work clothing was all function with absolutely no consideration for style.
With his sleeves rolled up, Irv quickly dropped to his knees in front of the white porcelain bowl and told me to hand him the "long skinny, yellow handled screwdriver". I moved things around in the blue tote and found it. I handed it to him over his shoulder, handle first.
Without hesitation and to my surprise, Irv plunged his bare hand into the bowl and began digging at something. I peered over his shoulder and watched as he made circles with the screwdriver. It would have made a nice "Norman Rockwell" picture, a 23-year-old helper peering over the shoulder of a 63-year-old plumber. The memory has remained with me in that art form.
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After considerable effort, Irv had something. He pulled it out of the toilet and it looked like a metal ring and so I asked "What is it Irv, a ring?" He flipped it to me and I caught it in mid-air. I looked at it briefly and then put it on the ring finger on my right hand and began admiring it… That's when Irv turned his head, and still kneeling in front of the bowl, he said: "No Vin, that's solidified urine!"
I immediately removed it from my finger and staring at Irv's crooked grin, I knew this trade was not for me. I made it through the rest of the day, careful what I touched. When I got home my wife asked "How was your day with my father?" Although she loved and admired him for being a great father and a respected plumber, I had to be honest "Your father's crazy and I'm never eating his homemade coleslaw ever again!"
Every Fourth of July Irv had a cookout at his house and he always made homemade coleslaw. On this day Irv wore shorts and his favorite shirt, a white tee with medium-sized horizontal blue stripes, a large red sailboat on the chest area, and red trim on the sleeves and neck. He cleaned up well and looked great in casual clothes. He turned on the stone fountain he built in the back yard and it was always a festive day, one we all looked forward to.
My day with Irv helped me eliminate "plumbing" as a career choice. I went back to my "Roach Coach" where in addition to food and beverage, I began selling designer jeans, leather jackets, cheap wristwatches, and costume jewelry. I even took bets on football games with cards I got from a local bookie. I had some big winners and the bookie always paid. This may be an oxymoron, but he was legit.
Back behind the wheel of my "Roach Coach" I had plenty of time to think about my future, which was going nowhere. While at my first stop, the Mass Hospital, I began some dialogue with the three plumbers working on the hospital renovations. When they heard that my father-in-law was a self-employed plumber they questioned my decision to drive a "Roach Coach". One of them asked me "Are you afraid of the little brown trout?" I knew that was plumber-speak for "shit", and I laughed and nodded yes. They went on to tell me how much they enjoyed being plumbers and that I didn't have to work the drain end if I didn't want to. They explained how they were focused on the mechanical end. I drove away with a lot to think about…
After a couple more weeks of selling coffee and taking bets, I mentioned to my wife that I wanted to give plumbing another go. She mentioned it to her mother who mentioned it to Irv. The women arranged a Sunday football day so I could talk to Irv.
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Irv's house was a small cape with a narrow circular driveway that facilitated his frequent stops at home between plumbing jobs. It was located less than a half-mile from the beach at Lake Massapoag in Sharon. He opened his plumbing company shortly after my wife was born in 1958. He worked out of his garage, which was under what was my wife's bedroom. It was where he stored pipe, fittings, and kept his pipe threading machine. In the unfinished basement, next to his American Standard Arcoleader oil-fired boiler, he had a desk he rarely used and an extra refrigerator where he kept wax rings for setting toilets. There was also an incinerator, legal at the time, where all paper goods were burned. As soon as my wife was old enough that became her job and when I started dating her I always did it for her.
Upstairs there was a small kitchen and a breakfast nook that Irv had built, surprising his wife with it when they returned from vacation, a small dining room, a comfortable formal living room, a screened porch built by a contractor who owed him money, and a little den where he watched T.V. with his wife. Their favorite show was "Candlepins for Cash" which was on every Saturday at noon. Even though Irv worked almost every Saturday morning, they rarely missed watching it together.
The den was small, 8' wide x 10 'long. There was a leather recliner and a fabric-covered loveseat along the side outside wall, a four-foot-wide, leather-wrapped bar angled in the corner that partially blocked the double-hung window at the rear of the house, and a console T.V. positioned across from the loveseat. Throw in the bookshelf on the inside wall above the T.V. and it was a tight fit, but comfortable. That's where we watched football. Irv had been a player and so had I, so we had a similar appreciation for the game. We both liked big hits. Always the perfect host, Irv let me have the recliner and he sat on the loveseat. The console T.V. couldn't have been much more than four feet in front of the loveseat.
I was there to watch football, but also to approach Irv with the idea of going to work for him. Everyone including Irv knew why I was there and that made it more difficult to start that conversation. Although I'd rehearsed several ways to begin, after the first quarter of the first game, I wasn't finding it… At halftime my wife brought in some snacks from the kitchen where she and her mother were enjoying their time together. Because the recliner was nearest the door and the loveseat in front of the T.V., my wife could motion to me from outside the room without Irv seeing. She mouthed to me "Did you ask him?" I shook my head no…
The first game ended and the second one was starting when my wife made her way in again, bringing more snacks and refilling our glasses. She was more deliberate this time, mouthing "Ask him!". I nodded okay…
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The second game was almost over and I hadn't asked him… Suddenly Irv turned to me and said "I heard you want to work for me" I responded "Yes". He said "Be here tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock-" I said "Okay." And there it was. I got my first job in the plumbing industry working for my father-in-law in the town I grew up in.
My career in plumbing has spanned 39 years, and although it didn't appear to be at first, in the end, it was the right decision for me.