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At 80, he's a legend in plumbing supply circles. But what happens when he retires?
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'Caino?' said a plumber who, on a recent morning, was being helped by the man himself. 'One of my instructors said, 'If you ever have a question you can't answer, there's a guy in Watertown.''
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Jim Cain tried to retire once, but the company asked him to come back.
John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
'Caino?' said that instructor, Nicholas Nocifora, of Wakefield's
'Caino?' said Drew Pilarski, a 48-year-old colleague. 'A lot of stuff he knows predates the internet. AI has not yet been trained on his brain.'
It was about 8:30 on a recent morning — two hours into Cain's shift. He was stationed at his familiar spot behind the counter, a worn brown company baseball cap on his head, self-fashioned fingerless gloves keeping his hands warm.
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Plumbers came and went, enjoying plumbing humor (one knee-slapper involved tank-to-bowl gaskets), and it felt like the setting for a genial sitcom: 'The Office,' maybe, but without the snark.
'I've been doing this for 53 years,' Cain said as he proceeded to unspool a life story that felt almost sepia-toned, though there he was, telling it in real time.
Jim Cain helped plumber David Waldron as he looked for a shower diverter at the F.W. Webb plumbing supply store in Watertown.
John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
That life? It started with a role model — a beloved uncle, a farmer who could fix anything — and moved along to a high school wrestling career, cut short when his family relocated from one small Oklahoma town to another. There was an initial attempt to stay out of the Vietnam War, which eventually led to deployment at Air Force bases in Quy Nhon and Nha Trang, where he repaired helicopter radios. Then came the return from war; a night out drinking beer with buddies that turned into a spontaneous road trip to Boston; a marriage; and, with it, the need for a regular salary.
He took a warehouse job delivering bathtubs, sinks, and other bulky items for a Waltham hardware store. He was eventually 'talked into' moving to the plumbing section and later jumped at the chance to take a job at Watertown Supply, which was eventually acquired by F.W. Webb. And, well, here he is, joyfully seeing life through a plumbing-supply guy's eye.
'Every place I go, to a restaurant or wherever, if I go to the bathroom, I'll think, 'Oh, that's a Delta faucet or a Sloan flush valve,'' he said.
In a culture that rewards self-promotion and emotionally charged content, Cain is a more old-fashioned influencer. 'TikTok I could care less about,' he said.
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His followers are in the real world, on their backs, in a crawl space, feeling blindly for a slow leak, or squatting to see behind a garbage disposal.
Jim Cain arranged copper pipes at the F.W. Webb plumbing supply store in Watertown.
John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
One of them is Matthew Waller, the owner of
Waller bought steam vents from Cain, which solved the heat problem, but not the secondary clanging issue. Soon
after, Waller returned to Webb for something else, 'and Caino stopped me outside.'
Cain had recalled the existence of a vent made by some obscure company with an aperture that allowed for better air flow and, with it, silence. And it was less expensive. 'He knew there was a fix and no one else would have,' Waller said.
But as crucial as plumbing may be, there's more to life. Cain is a husband (for the third time), a dad, a grandfather, a brother, and a man who enjoys a good joke. Taped to the plexiglass shield in front of his workstation (a COVID holdover) is a cartoon from his sister that shows an executioner who's built a bowling alley lane below the guillotine. 'No matter what the job,' the caption reads, 'always try to make it fun.'
Jim Cain searched through the hundreds of bins for a faucet part in the supply room at the F.W. Webb plumbing supply store in Watertown. He knows everything about plumbing and will relentlessly find a part for loyal customers.
John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
On a recent morning, during a brief lull in business, Pilarski — Cain's coworker and enthusiastic publicist — took the opportunity to tell more of his idol's life story.
'Caino once wrestled
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'Brisco kicked my butt,' Cain said, not unhappily. He pulled up his sweatshirt to display a big belt buckle with an image of two men wrestling. 'A tradition since 1922,' it reads. 'Perry Wrestling.''
So, is he planning on retiring anytime soon?
In 2022, Cain missed a few months' work after he passed out while grocery shopping at Market Basket in Billerica and had to have a pacemaker put in. But he couldn't wait to get back.
'I got bored as hell being at home,' he said.
Asked what he longed to get back to, he said the people — and the parts.
Beth Teitell can be reached at
