"Elegy for Alfred Hubbard" by Tony Conner

The poem “Elegy for Alfred Hubbard” by Tony Conner is a poem about an old plumber who has just died. The author describes Alfred as being a very genuine guy. He says “No other like him. Young men with knowledge of new techniques and theories from books may better his work, straight from college.” This is describing that he could be easily replaced when it came to getting the job done, but maybe not so much when it came to other things that may be more important to the customers. According to his customers; Alfred was not a very good plumber. The author hints this fact in a few different lines. One of the lines says “but who will challenge his squint-eyed looks in kitchen, bathroom, under floorboards, rules of thumb which were often wrong; seek as erringly stopcocks in cupboards, or make a job last half as long?” So the question to the customers then arises, if they knew that Alfred Hubbard was a bad plumber, then why didn’t they just fire him and get a new plumber?

               Alfred Hubbard was a people person. He enjoyed talking to his customers about things going on around town and around their neighborhoods. Although his skills as a plumber weren’t quite up to par, he still got hired by all of these people because he was a gossip king. He liked to tell the neighbors what was going on with the other neighbors and they enjoyed hearing about it. The author describes the old words as, “Seventy years of gossip muttered under his cap, his tufty thatch, so that his talk was slow and clotted, hard to follow, and too much.” This wise old man is making friends with his customers so they will keep hiring him to do the job. If you ask me it is genius. 

               I found the end of the poem very humorous. The stanza reads, “And the housewife banging his front-door knocker is not surprised to find him gone, and runs for Thwaite, who's a better worker, and sticks at a job until it's done.” I find it funny, but you still have to give props to the old man because the wife knows who the better plumber is all along, but she still picks Alfred. I think that the neighbors will be sad that they don’t have their old plumber around anymore to share the gossip with them. On the other hand, they will get their plumbing done correctly.

               Alfred Hubbard is a business man whether he does a good job with the plumbing or not. The only thing that “little man” (small businesses) can thrive on is having great customer relationships. It gives the consumer comfort in knowing that they don’t have to feel awkward about a stranger coming to their house. Alfred Hubbard knows that so he builds good customer relationships in the neighborhood by gossiping about the other neighbors. I also think that he gets a little bit of satisfaction out of this gossip as well though.