I have an old (I guess it's old now; going on 30 years) boom box that has traveled with me on at least a dozen moves now. It's one of two. One works fine. They're both made by Sony and look much the same. Both have handles so they can be toted without too much awkwardness. They can be operated by both electric and battery means. The radios play well. They even can, if they exist, play cassettes--remember those?
The other day, though, one of them broke down. Which is to say, the CD player stopped working. I have a collection of a couple hundred CDs, so this constituted a colossal waste. I tolerated it for a while. But that was the boom box in which I'd usually put a jazz CD while making my award-winning (by myself to myself, if I may be so braggart) chili (which, however, has earned kudos from all who have tried it). It takes 40 minutes to an hour to make a huge pot, which is about the time for most CDs to run. I had that boom box set up in my dining room, blaring into the adjacent kitchen--a perfect arrangement. Sonny Rollins, Tony Bennett, and Diana Krall would help me lurch through my process.
In other words, I missed the music and the ambiance. So, at long last, I decided to do something about it. Getting something that far obsolete repaired, at least in terms of communicative technology, takes a specialist. I am typical of my generation: scared to death of anything beyond plugging something in. Thousands of people myst be laughing at us, raking in bucks while doing what they figure any dolt could do. We're not just any dolts, though. We're helpless dolts. We left Apple iPhone behind at 3 or 4. What is it now, 26 or something?
But I found a store that I thought would do the trick: A place called UBreakIt, IFixIt. There are a couple in the Milwaukee area; one I solicited for my phone in Whitefish Bay, not far of a drive from my place on the East Side, did well. I found another one even closer.
I tried them again late last month. The young lady (this place has young proprietors) took a look and wasn't sure she could help me. But she promised to try. The order slip suggested that they'd be ready on the 10th of February, two weeks hence.
Well, it got to be the 16th, nearly three weeks, and I wanted a decision. I called, and they admitted failure. I was a bit piqued: Get this thing back to me so I can make, maybe, the kind of decision one must make with a pet, painful but necessary: Is it time to end the relationship? Is it just not worth it anymore? Shall I commence burial, or at least relinquish it next to the nearby dumpster?
But UBreakIt didn't want to leave me without alternatives, so they called someone on the South Side: Would he take a look at it? Sure, he said. They gave me the name of the place and the address. Off I went. I thought that was nice. They didn't have to do that. They pitied the customer. Doesn't always happen nowadays. Maybe they thought they owed me that.
The address was on a main drag of that part of the town, Oklahoma Avenue. But that didn't mean fanciness or slick storefronts. It was a corner store with its entrance on that angle embracing both directions. (I later learned it was an old ice cream parlor.) No parking lot, either. You had to park as close as you could, which for me was a good half a block away.
I lugged the boom box to the door--Did people actually put these things on their shoulders?--but it was locked with this little sign on the glass: Back in 10 Minutes. It meant that there was but one person staffing the place--otherwise, someone else would have been there--and whatever the issue, it was too urgent to invite business to come in. At any rate, when you see something saying Back in 10 Minutes, you can pretty much bet it'll be longer. What it nearly always means is, Don't give up on us. We'll be back. Hope you are, too.
I lugged the boom box back. It wasn't an especially busy street I was parked on--South 10th--so I figured that if I caught a little lunch at a nearby McDonald's, that would take up the prerequisite time and it would be open when I re-parked in nearly the same place, alongside houses many of which needed new front steps. So it was. He wasn't lying. The place hadn't closed for the day.
UBreakIt, IFixIt is spick and span with plenty of room between the front door and the counter, nicely lit and clean. This place, called Economy TV, has no counter. It had overhead lights frustratingly dim. One didn't work.
The shelving was stacked with old component audio sets, the kind that, in the '60s and '70s, were essential for someone into recorded music and LPs. But people don't buy those anymore. I had no idea whether they were operable or not, but considering the thick dust that covered them, no one had seen to that in some time.
The shop held a throwback fascination, though. Placed nicely here and there were old radios. They all played AM and FM with names on them like ads in newsmagazines, in the days when they ruled the stands: Philco and Zenith, for instance. The attendant, about six inches shorter than me, clad in a navy peacoat that indicated that the place didn't shell out much for heat, noticed me glancing at them. "They all work, too," he made sure to inform me. The display even had one of those 1920s-era wooden radios, reminding one of the front of a cathedral. "Works fine," said the sign taped to it, in case one was looking for a real live antique.
But that wasn't the only amazement. The moment I walked in, the fellow, probably not much younger than me than ten years, reached out and grabbed the boom box immediately. What constituted work orders were written out on business cards; no excess paper required. Remember, they had been informed that they might--might--have someone coming who needed help. The card with the order had already been prepared. When's the last time you had that happen?
Someone needed, you would think, to take a rag and Endust to all this. I looked for spider webs from the girded ceiling. But the component sets were blocked by other component sets, which seemed to take up every square inch of the place. Enough room had been cleared to walk in with one's problem. That was about it. But that's about all that was necessary. The work area, with used and scraped wood, was a few steps to the rear. It was jammed with things to repair. A stack of channel changers lurked nearby. Some of them, too, had thick dust on them.
It seemed like a place that might collapse at any minute. Yet, it had an energy to it, an exigency that felt genuinely helpful. It was a neighborhood store, the kind of place I would never have known about without the earlier recommendation. The surrounding vicinity, once thoroughly Polish but now leaning decisively Hispanic, had blocks of houses with groaning old porches and stairs that, too, could use some repair. Walking through in February, I wondered whether chairs were still being set up and people called out across the streets to each other during the other three seasons. I hoped so. I would hate to see it go to waste.
Economy TV, however jumbled and chaotic as it at first appeared, was scrapping and hustling and scraping for whatever it could get. I was happy, in a way, to help them. They charged twenty bucks for a look-see. I took out my debit card. Foolish. Should have known. "We take only cash," he warned me. With service this efficient, I wasn't going to deny him. He read my mind. Never phased him; I'm sure he'd had this problem before. "There's a liquor store across the way with an ATM," he said. I went and got a couple of twenties.
I had waited in futility three weeks for the slick, clean, prestigious East Side outfit to get back to me. I had had to reconnect with them for them to tell me that they couldn't fix my problem. Heaven knows how long it would be there had I not taken the initiative.
Mr. Navy Peacoat, though, took one look at me and said, "We'll get back to you in a couple of days." I believed him. This was the kind of arrangement Don Nelson, former coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, had in mind when he chose to eschew formal contractural discussions with then-owner Herb Kohl and settled on a once-a-year handshake to continue his job. The informality led to complete trust. Someone's word mattered here.
They did call me back quickly. Two hours. "We're all done," he said. "You can come get it. It'll be forty, so you owe us another twenty."
Three weeks as opposed to two hours? Was this age-ism working, however subtlety? Or was it just that an older repairman was used to the equipment? Mattered not.
I came for it the next day. There were other men in the shop on this late Saturday morning, too. They didn't seem as interested in getting things fixed as they were in just visiting. Sloppily clad, one had had several teeth removed in front. There were grins all around. Bonding need not be done perpetually in bars.
Navy Peacoat took me back to the repair bench for a test drive. "I was listening to my favorite song all day yesterday," he said, and cranked on some Ronnie Milsap. Not jazz, but it blared nicely. All set. I paid him off.
I mentioned my chili prep. "See, now you've got a friend to make your chili," another attendant said. "You took me right away, so thanks," I told them. "I'll recommend you."
They thanked me as I left. There was a bounce in my step as I worked back to the car. I got home, plugged in the boom box, now good as new, and celebrated by turning it up. No sense holding back. The chili would taste good tonight. The jazz would sound better.
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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