You don’t have to spend long with Culver City’s friendliest plumber, John Riordan, to realize that Southerly Americans have earned their historic reputation for courtliness.

His accessible Southern accent resembles melting butter on toast.

In a liberal age when Americans are encouraged to call everyone by his first name, Mr. Riordan fits more comfortably into the deferential gentlemanly mode traditionally associated with the South.

At 89, the owner of John Riordan Plumbing, Inc. for almost half a century is hinting at – but not promising – retirement in ’17.

Now he was talking about his roots and how much of the country he has seen.

The native of Cape Girardeau, MO, “which is south of St. Louis,” left there 72 years ago, at age 17, to join the Army and catch the final year of World War II.

For sentimentalists, you know he is an oldtimer because after the war, he came back to Kansas City to learn radio repair. “I also worked on television sets,” Mr. Riordan said.

“Then I went to Michigan and repaired radios there, too.”

Beaming brightly enough to illumine an auditorium, Mr. Riordan said that “I came to California for a vacation in 1959, and I never went back.”

Mr. Riordan, who lives alone, knows he is advancing in years because his son and his daughter, both married with families, have retired – before dear old Dad.