Father's Day: A 1974 plumbing disaster

In 1974, when I was 11, I flushed an apple core down the toilet.

You see, my father had remodeled our basement into a family room with a powder room.

Always looking to save a buck — he had six kids to feed on one income — he bought the cheapest toilet he could find.

It never did work right, and since we couldn’t afford a plumber, my father spent much of his spare time unclogging it.

Armed with thi...