Twenty years ago this month, I wrote a column for pme sister publication Plumbing & Mechanical titled, “Reaching for Higher Plateaus.” Contractors I meet still remind me of that column, even after all these years. They ask how Kelly is doing and I tell him she is now a fifth-grade schoolteacher and a happily married mother of two. She continues to make me smile and she still thinks it’s gross that I get excited over old heating systems. But she turned out just fine, in spite of me.
I thought it would be a good time to retell that story because it still rings true and it offers perspective, especially the last part. Here ’tis.