In 1974, when I was 11, I flushed an apple core down the toilet.
My father had remodeled our basement into a wood-paneled 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 flush right. My father spent much of his spare time unclogging it.
Armed with this knowledge, it’s remarkable I did what I did.
Regrettable Decision
One Sunday morning, after chomping on a large Washington apple, I lay on the family room couch, too lazy to get up and properly dispose of it.
I noticed about 12 feet away that the toilet lid was up.
In a moment of insanity, I aimed the core at the toilet and flicked my wrist. The core floated majestically through the air and landed dead center in the bowl with a satisfying “kerplunk!”
I later flushed it and never gave it another thought — until a few months later when another clog was reported.
As fate would have it, this happened on a Sunday morning while I lay on the couch holding another Washington apple core. I watched television while my father fought to free the clog.
But nothing he did worked. The plunger failed, but not before he was soaking wet. Two jars of Drano had no effect. Even the plumber’s snake he borrowed from a neighbor would not dislodge the mother of all clogs.
In a fit of rage, my father unbolted the toilet from the floor. In one mighty heave, he lifted it off its mount and set it in front of the television.
He knelt before the black hole in the floor. He reached his mighty paw inside, then his forearm, then his biceps.
His head was pressed against the cold, wet linoleum, sweat dripping off his nose, veins bulging in his temples.
His eyes lit up.
He had something.
He slowly withdrew his biceps, his forearm and finally his paw — then stared at his clenched fist.
He carefully unpeeled his grimy fingers, and there it was: a black, rotten apple core.
Regrettable Discovery
I could go into detail about his incredible reaction — how he ran through the house shouting, “Who the hell flushed an apple core down the toilet?”
I could describe the shock and horror he felt when he discovered that I, his only son and only hope of carrying on the family name, was the idiot who did it.
But I won’t.
I will tell you, as I explain in my humorous memoir, “Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood,” I was paralyzed with fear, the kind born of respect.
My father loved me and wanted the best for me. He wanted me to master basic virtues — at the very least to master common sense — and I failed him spectacularly.
If only he were like the hapless fathers portrayed on television these days — but he wasn’t.
He was unafraid to discipline and strengthen his children to prepare us for life.
A Father I’ll Never Forget
We lost my father four years ago. He would have been 93.
What I wouldn't give to hear him ask me, as he did jokingly over the years, “Why the hell did you flush an apple core down the toilet!”
My heart aches for so many children who are without firm direction because they lack guidance from an unapologetically masculine father who dresses them down — so he can shape them into sensible, responsible human beings.
The way my father did when I flushed an apple core down the toilet in 1974.
Find Tom Purcell’s syndicated column, humor books and funny videos of his dog, Thurber, at TomPurcell.com. Email him at Tom@TomPurcell.com.
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