April 25 — same date every year
Most of us take plumbing for granted. It works so well we never think about it. That’s no accident. It’s a testament to America’s hardworking, highly-skilled plumbers.
Plumbing requires training and experience. And hard work: on hands and knees in filthy crawl spaces under houses, dodging spiders, confronting unmentionables that plumbers tactfully call “solids.”
History of Plumbing
Plumbing as we know it today is a relatively new phenomenon.
People used to carry water by hand from rivers. They relieved themselves in bushes — or outhouses — or chamber pots they’d toss into foul, unsanitary streets.
Think about all the squalor and disease that plumbers have saved mankind from suffering.
Timeline of plumbing prepared by the Duluth Trading Company — click on it to expand to the full timeline:
Duluth Trading Company has a cure for “plumbers crack” — a long-tailed T-shirt: