|
Great story! Myself:
As a young kid in the 70s I was always fascinated by our color console, a tube chassis GE. I liked to turn the sound down and put my ear up to the cabinet and just listen to it "hum". I liked to peer in the back and watch the tubes glow, feel the heat, smell the dust. A highlight was when the repairman came, usually Mr. Bruce Meredith. I got a sneak peak inside! I loved to DX, getting up early in the morning to twiddle the dial. (around this same time I discovered the joys of DX'ing AM radio with a little transistor set) In the early 80s I discovered old radios. My parents had good friends that had a c.1940 Philco in the living room for decoration. I always snuck behind it while nobody was looking, and thought it was very neat...the places listed on that dial, the way the chassis was mounted on a slant, those big ST tubes. My uncle, meanwhile, had a '38 Philco, one of those "no-stoop" sets with the big round dial. I was in love!
There was an old lean-to behind my father's shop and one winter the roof collapsed. While cleaning out the place he dug out a Zenith "Universal" portable from about '46. He gave it to me to play with. I plugged it in but it just hummed. It was crawling with ants so I sprayed it with the only thing handy, some Raid Wasp & Hornet killer. To this day, if I smell that stuff I get nostalgic! I never did get that Zenith working...but it really lit a fire in me. In time, I found an AA5 Emerson from the late 50s at a yard sale, 50 cents. It worked fine. The notion that old tube electronics actually worked was a big deal to me at the time! From there it just steamrollered. I heard Jack Carney playing bits of Jack Benny on the radio. I bought more sets. All of my allowance now went to my hobby. On a field trip to the library I did some research and learned I was not the only antique radio collector in the world! I joined some clubs, got some newsletters.
One day, when I was maybe 15, I was in a local antique store. I never knew that the upstairs was open to the public. One day the door was open so I ventured up there. I walk down the aisle and up front there is a perfect layout of a 50s living room, including an RCA 21" console from '54. They sold it to me for $25, and agreed to deliver it that same day. It arrived before my parents got home, so I was able to sneak it into the house! Had it for a week before they knew. The set worked well, too. The collection ballooned. My little room became packed, as did most of the other space around the house that I could get away with. Around the time I graduated high school I discovered the town dump-and the alleyways behind the local TV shops. I started dragging home tube color sets by the truckload. (still fairly easy to do around 90-91)
Most of what I had back then is gone, a victim of limited storage space and my own youth and stupidity. But today I have many times more than what I had then. I also have an old car, the 67 Impala that Dad started fixing up for me when I was 15, also in 1987. Lots of other old stuff around here, too! Hope I wasn't too long...
__________________
Bryan
|