Author's Note: Since 2017, I have recalled the following story almost weekly, as one of the people involved in it has figured prominently in events thereafter. It also forms the basis for one of my guiding principles: everybody out there, regardless of their beliefs or ours, is someone who can make a huge difference in your life, and we ought to remember that and act accordingly.
It was a week before Christmas. We were rushing about, anticipating visits to and from family, trying to get the house ready, trying to get all the presents. Micki once coined the term “hectivity” in her weekly syndicated column and it works perfectly to describe things in that moment. As usual for that time of year, we didn't need any more anxiety or stress. It was then that all of our toilets and showers started backing up at the same time.
This was the early 2000s. The boys were quite young. I was still pretty new as a homeowner. There were some things I could do, but we had been quite lucky up to that moment. Unfortunately, we didn't have a regular trusted plumber, yet. I called one of my lifelines, either my brother or Pop Bare or Pop Schramm (Micki’s father) for help. I tried everything they suggested. Nothing worked.
Our former house was built in the late 1980s and we had a convenient cleanout, so I went to Lowe's and bought a rubber pressure set. The cucumber-shaped black rubber nozzle fits on the end of a regular garden hose. When water flowed into it, it expanded against the inside of the pipe, and a jet of high-pressure water sprayed out of the tip. This, ideally, would clear any blockages, but it just filled the drain line with more water. When I cut off the spigot, Micki ran out to tell me that all the inside drains were making unholy noises and strongly encouraged me to call a plumber.
In a panic, now and heart sinking, I called a random plumber from the phone book. I will not put his name into the record for posterity here, save to reflect on the words of our current beloved and deeply trusted plumber, when I told him this story: “He's something else.” This is Southern understatement that can be roughly translated as “You ought to have called literally anyone else.” How could I have known?
That guy determined that he couldn't manage the blockage himself. He offered to have a friend with a backhoe come out and start digging up the lawn. Otherwise, he said to either call Rotorooter or the city. This was before smartphones, so I again called my lifeline for help deciding. Pop Schramm said Rotorooter would be exorbitant and they might not be able to fully fix the problem, which he gently hinted might need to be dug up to be fixed properly.
In the space between our house and our neighbors on the right (looking from the porch to the cul-de-sac) was a sewer cleanout. This manhole- lidded cement throat caught water from every house in our section of the development and drained deep to an easement behind our neighborhood. Now desperate and fueled with Incredible Hulk-like strength, I went to my toolbox and got a crowbar and with some time and determination, pried the lid off and peered in.
The first thing that hit me was the smell. Grey water, human waste, the strange, salty smell of rusty metal and damp cement. Even though it was December and cool, large reddish cockroaches, sometimes called palmetto bugs, or smokey browns, skittered in the shadows. I think somewhere in my psyche a connection was made with a particular book I first read in high school. I half expected to see a red balloon float up and hear maniacal clown laughter.
There were rebar ladder rungs leading into the depths. I was briefly tempted to crawl down there to see what was blocking our lines, but had a pang of claustrophobic panic at the thought that some curious neighbor might see the lid askew and helpfully put it back. I would be trapped down there forever, flashlight battery fading, screaming unheard, and coated with too many six-legged friends. The panic rose. My chest hurt, and the world spun. I felt helpless.
Things were spiraling out of control and growing well beyond my meager ability to handle the stress of the situation. Pop Bare, my brother, and Pop Schramm all had the skill, mechanical inclination, and well-worn experience to face such nightmares calmly. Like seasoned gunslingers, they had all faced similar situations and managed them.
I was drowning.
At the worst moments of our lives, there is a calm voice that cuts through the frenetic chaos in our heads. Sometimes it is a strong memory. In my case it was Micki. She calmly reminded me that her dad said to call the city. “It’s after-hours,” I replied, still panicking. “Call 911. This constitutes an emergency,” she said. So I called.
I told the dispatcher what was happening and they put me through to the foreman of an on-call crew. They said they would be out within the hour. As promised, their trucks rolled up into the cul-de-sac before an hour had passed Out stepped a posse of sturdy guys, hard hats, and bright vests, calm as the United States Marines.
Like all such workers, they were unperturbed. Nothing I said could rattle them. Guys like this have seen every kind of possible plumbing horror and they have faced it with unshakable calm. These men were like chilled steel as I explained to them what the problem was. They nodded, knowingly, and set to work. One of them, a bear-like fellow, with a growling, rumbling voice and a kind face gently reassured me.
I'm sure I was in a state. The memory is strong. This was one of those moments where I came face-to-face with my own inability to do anything to solve the problem. I was probably vibrating with anxiety. He told me to go sit on the porch and I nodded and stood on the driveway, unable to calm down, let alone sit.
I watched and listened. After a long time standing in the chill air, I went into the house to get a jacket. When I came back a couple of the guys, including the man with the deep voice, had come up to the porch with a 5-gallon bucket. In it was a massive clump of something that looked like wet and curling hair. I thought maybe someone flushed a big Cher-style Halloween wig or something. “Roots” the burly guy rumbled. He then explained what had been happening in our drain line.
When the contractors built that house back in the late 1980s, they ran a drain line from it to the sewer, where I had removed the manhole cover. In the intervening twenty-odd years, the ground had settled and the drain line was disconnected about halfway up. It was only a half inch off, but it was enough for nearby trees to send hair-thin root tendrils into the gap. Come to think of it, I thought, the trees had always been healthy in our yard.
The other plumber had been right. It would require a dig to fix. The city workers took out their camera and ran it up to the roots and then turned on a heavy-duty auger-thing that severed the mass of roots and cleared the blockage, even though the disconnection was well up on our property and definitely “our problem”.
The burly guy said that it was close enough that they had no problem helping out and wished the family and me a Merry Christmas. Soon enough, the cul-de-sac was empty.
Here's where the story gets good.
In 2017, lost and looking for help, I joined an AA meeting downtown. The guy who welcomed me was the same burly man with a deep, booming voice who helped a stressed-out young man all those years before. Now, he helped me again, by welcoming me, guiding me, reassuring me without judgment, and with seemingly endless patience through the Program.
It’s funny how things turn out.
The moral, once I was able to grasp it, seemed simple: there are a lot of good people out there who do help and genuinely care. Those city workers took pity on a young homeowner and went above and beyond to help because they could. Yes, it was Christmas, but I have a sense that they would have done it at any time of the year.
The part of all this that hits me, though, is that you never know when you're looking at the face of someone who will one day be a friend who helps in a far more significant way. Be nice. You might be talking to someone who will one day become a beloved friend with the wisdom and experience you need access to.
That experience has resonated with me ever since. I was basically a kid with zero hope of getting away without spending thousands of bucks. We didn't have to repair a nasty, tangled problem that would rapidly ruin our house. An act of kindness and pushing the rules a bit was all it took to prevent (or postpone) a nightmare situation. And it introduced me to a friend who would do way more to help than I could ever repay.
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