Courtesy of DOD
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Categories - Copywriting - Shopping - Free Online Business Help - Telecommunications Services Articles: Family - A Visit from Dad One day, my mother called me complaining that her water bill was over $200. It normally would be $30 at the most. I went over and after poking around, discovered that she had a massive leak somewhere unknown. I called a retired plumber friend who told me that it was a burst as opposed to a leak, but he couldn't find the leak for sure. He thought it was under a brick bench, which rested on a concrete pad just out the back door. Expecting to find a lake, I sledge hammered the brick and the pad out to find no leak. After two weeks of different leak detectors and a lot more digging and hammering, I discovered that the leak was under slate floor under a pad under another pad and it wasn't going to be easy or cheap. The pipes in my mother’s home were old galvanized steel that had been put in forty years ago. My Dad had taught me how to be a brick and concrete mason and I had learned how to do carpentry, cabinetry, electrical, tile, carpet, plastering, and most other things in construction, but I always avoided learning to do plumbing, other than things like fixing sinks and replacing toilets, because I always associated it with human waste. My Dad had known how, but he had died about five years earlier. The prices ranged from $10,000 to $20,000 to fix the leak if I helped, but everyone was too busy to get to it. A guy told my mother that he would do it for half price. I knew he wouldn't, but she hired him anyway. I watched him for a day and learned how to solder and cut copper piping and about the different connectors and valves. Even though my mother's water was turned off, he didn’t show up the next day so, even though I had high blood pressure and tired easily, I was on my own. After the leak was fixed, the added water pressure started creating other leaks in the old galvanized piping all over the house. I ended up tearing off most of the backside of the house and sledge hammering several more holes in the ground to get to them. When all was said and done, I ended up replacing all of her old galvanized pipe with 300 feet of new copper. Even though I had never done this before, I began to notice that, as I cut the pipe, it was always the right length and none of my solder joints leaked when I tested them. None of the new kitchen and bathroom shut off valves that I put in leaked either. The holes I had to drill in the wall studs for the new piping were always in the right place and when I got to something that I had never done before, I somehow knew how to do it. Crawling several times in the attic and under the house didn’t seem to bother me even though I normally avoided doing these things at all costs. When I put the plywood and tarpaper that would be underneath the brick and stone back over the outside wall, I always made the right measurements and cuts. When I started replacing the concrete, everything went as smoothly as everything else had. I had not been in construction for over 25 years and even when I was, nothing ever went this smoothly. Even though I took breaks when I felt my blood pressure getting too high, I didn’t seem to tire. The sense that something strange was going on stayed with me each day that I worked. If you have worked in the trades, you know that this is not possible. As I began to put back the stone and the brick, I noticed that I always seemed to grab just the right stone that would fit in the spot that I needed to fill. As I neared completion, I got to a point where a whole brick would not fit because it was too thick. I needed to split a few brick lengthwise in half. Even in my best days, this was not easy and I would often go through a number of brick before I got it right. I took my brick hammer and tapped all around the brick like you're supposed to and suddenly, it fell into two perfect halves in my hand. As I stared at the brick in my hand in amazement, I thought, "That's a bunch of crap. There's no way that I just did that." A very warm and pleasant chill came over my entire body, stayed for a few seconds, and then left leaving me tired and spent but very happy. Suddenly I knew that it was my Dad saying, "I'll see you later". I struggled with the few remaining brick while feeling like I could barely lift my trowel. The retired plumber friend who was actually my Dad’s friend stopped by a few days later to see how thing’s had gone. When I told him about everything that had to be torn out and replaced, he said that one guy couldn’t do that in a month. I told him that my Dad helped. He said, “I believe you.”
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