We’re here today to celebrate the life of an extraordinary man. My dad may have been a successful corporate attorney, but it was a profession he hated. Every day, he toiled away reviewing SEC filings, revising merger documents, and debating the placement of a semicolon for six hours. The only thing that kept him going was the hope that his son might someday have a better life as a plumber.

Dad was taken from us too soon. But I’m thankful he lived long enough to see me graduate from The Plumbing Academy, build my own business, and pay cash for a waterfront condo in Punta Gorda.

Thanks to dad’s love and encouragement, I’m the first member of my family to go to school and learn a useful skill. I finally broke the family cycle of white-collar suffering that stretched back sixteen generations. We had a relative on the Mayflower—a magistrate. He stood around in a black robe while everyone else hoisted sails, pumped bilge water, and kept the ship afloat. It’s a stain on the family name we can finally move beyond.

You may not know this about dad, but he wanted to be an electrician. He dreamed of a high-paying career where he could be his own boss, fill a vital need, and make a positive contribution to society. But he grew up in a family where there weren’t many options. His parents believed that college was the only path to success. You were expected to become a corporate attorney, a tax attorney, or a litigator. The poor guy never had a chance.

I can still see the weary look on his face when he’d come home at midnight, his soft hands covered with paper cuts, ink under his manicured nails. The man billed fourteen hours a day. But because of dad’s sacrifice, I can afford luxuries he never dreamed of: getting home at a reasonable hour, leaving work at work, being able to retire at 55 with full benefits, and actually knowing what my children look like.

I know dad had regrets, and investing so much money in a 529 was one of them. My trade school tuition was only like ten grand. I made that back just the other day replacing a septic tank.

I briefly considered following dad into corporate law and hating every second of my life. But he sat me down one day and said, “Kid, I never wanted that for you. I’m busting my ass so you can have a rewarding career that can’t be replaced by a robot.”

That’s when dad suggested I become a plumber. My grandparents were horrified. For people of their generation, hands weren’t for doing honest work. They were for signing legal documents, holding highball glasses, and pressing the flesh. But I didn’t hear any complaining when I installed their water pump and fixed their toilet for free.

It took a burst pipe on a freezing cold night to finally make them proud. As dad always said, nothing makes you respect a plumber like six inches of water in the basement.

Dad truly was my hero. He saw where the world was going long before anyone else. By the time I graduated from The Plumbing Academy, parents were begging their kids to go to trade school.

Even at the end, dad never lost his passion for electrical work. I’ve often wondered what might have happened if he had followed his heart and gone to technical school. Would he still be with us today? We’ll never know.

We can all take comfort knowing that he died doing what he loved most: attempting to install a Ring doorbell by himself.