I'm an old grouch at 33.

[Carmine]

Before anybody thinks I'm too nice, let me come clean and remind you that I trash-picked that set a couple weeks ago. If I find a Zenith roundie, I'm not donating it to the local orphans home!

But it is so sad that people have been brainwashed into zombies who get their self-worth from material stuff. Perhaps because my parents went through some tough times in the 80s (what Chrysler worker didn't back then?) and I saw my dad come home with his coat in shreds while paying the bills at a meat-packing plant, I sure as hell wasn't going to ask for expensive name-brand crap just because some spoiled 12-year-old at school had Nike's.

I wasn't brought up with a bunch of hooey-doomsday stuff about the enviroment, recycling, etc. I was simply taught that being wasteful was a sin, whether with food, electricity, water or television sets! I go to estate sales, and you can always tell those "greatest-generation/depression-era" houses. Lots of good-quality stuff kept clean and working. Nowadays, you go into most houses and its just a bunch of throwaway furniture, Wal-Mart junk.

It's hard for me to get used to grey-haired folk pulling up next to me in a new Dihatsu Charade, instead of an older Mercury Grand Marquis. (I'm very patient with the bad driving of the latter, blow my horn at the former.)

But what are ya gonna do? Hard times are a comin' again, and experience is a great teacher!

[Sandy G]

"Being wasteful was a sin..." Hey Carmine, you sure my granmother didn't raise you, too?...

[andy]

I understand how you feel, but try to look at it from the average person's view.

Most people wouldn't take a consol TV if it was free, particularly a non-remote set with no video input for a DVD player. They're hard to move and take up a ton of space in a small apartment. I wouldn't call them ungreatful. They know that $50 will buy a very nice modern used TV these days. She probably just wants to get something she will want to keep for a while.

[Bill R]

Hay Sandy hang in there with the daughter. A lot could be learned from a 76 caddie.
When My oldest daughter started to get her license, I bought an 89 mustang with a stick shift and told her to learn to drive it. It wasn't what she wanted, but she never complained and did learn to drive it. It made her very nervous in traffic though and I found her an 89 GMC jimmy. It needed work, and had pealing paint, but she loved it. I wasn't pretty, but it was safe and reliable. She drove that truck all over this end of the state until she was in a position to buy her own truck. She bought a brand new 03 S-10. She now has a very deep respect and understanding of things like car payments and insurance, and she keeps her truck up so well that it would still pass as a new turck. My other daughter now drives the ugly jimmy, and even though it may get some laughs it gets her everywhere she wants to go. It now has about 270,000 miles on it, and is quite rusted with peeling paint, and the seats are now worn out to the foam in places, but she doesn't care. I think though that since there is a good possibility she will be going to UT in Knoxville, I may have to find her something with a few less miles to take to school. I will bet she will be just as pickey with her first new car ( and she will buy her own ) as my older daughter is.

Bill R.

[Chad Hauris]

I wouldn't be too offended by the comment. They were not looking for a donation, and this set just did not suit the buyer's taste, that's all.
We do have several customers who really do like console TV's and have sold them some relatively late model RCA consoles we had bought over the years and taken the old one in trade. It does tend to be mostly the older people that prefer them.

[Randy Bassham]

When my Daughter turned 16 and got her license I told her she could drive our old '84 Chevrolet Cavalier station wagon. She turned up her nose and said a station wagon wasn't cool. I just said fine and walked off. After she figured out that I wasn't overly concerned with her motoring style she came back and we had a talk. I informed her the only reason she was getting a car to drive was for my convinience and that the old wagon was an extra and she was welcome to drive it. I told her that if she tore it up she wouldn't have a car to drive and if either mine or her mom's car broke down she wouldn't have a car. A 16 year old dictating terms as to how I'll spend my money is something that just kinda rubs my fur the wrong way. My Dad bought me a 18 year old Dodge when I got my drivers license, he paid $200.00 for it. I took off and promptly pushed the old flathead six too hard and nearly destroyed it. Dad told me that was really too bad and he wondered how I was going to fix it. I'd torn down and overhauled lawnmower engines but this was a lot bigger. Dad let me use his tools and I replaced the main and rod bearings in our driveway, Dad would answer questions for me but he never picked up a wrench, He figured (rightly) that if I had to invest all that sweat equity and pay for the parts the car was likely to last a lot longer....He was right, that was 40 years ago and I still have the old Dodge and I've not had the oil pan off since. As for my Daughter, she's 31 and thanks me now for how she was raised...

[kx250rider]

Originally Posted by Carmine

I was cruising around Craigslist and found this ad:



So I e-mail the guy, and it turns out he is only a couple blocks away from me. Gives me the whole story about his daughter starting over, etc. etc. I send over a picture of this RCA set for $35:

Calls me and says he'll come take a look, but will need his son to help move the set, and he is still sleeping because he was out 'till 1AM the night before, and won't be up until Noon (Monday).

Around 11:30 AM, he calls and says that his daughter doesn't want such an old-looking TV.

I actually didn't even mean to say it outloud, but I respond with "Wow, must be nice to be one of your kids. Thanks for the call." click!

Understand, I really don't care if I sell it or not... Just unbelievable that he writes a tear-jerker ad for his daughter, and she turns up her nose at something because it isn't "cool" enough. Did he think people were going to be offering plasma-screens for $50? Even a POS Wal-Mart set that size runs $200! The son is old enough to stay out till 1AM, but sleeping beauty can't get out of bed till Noon?

However much I may have hated it then, I'm glad my parents were tough on me. I was afraid to even sit on the couch in front of my mother for fear she'd find something for me to do! The downside is, I feel like a grouchy old man at age 33!

I appreciate your generosity in offering a set to a total stranger at a very fair price, even if the recipient of the generosity does not know how to appreciate anything.

#1, anyone who stays in an abusive relationship for more than a couple days of realizing they're in one, when they have a family to go home to, is not too sharp.

#2, I get a terrible migraine headache if I sleep past 7:30, even if I stay out an party 'til 2 or 3 AM. (Well, maybe not party, but perhaps hauling home some hulk of a TV on a dark desert highway and arriving home at 2 or 3 AM more likely in my case)...

#3, She doesn't deserve that RCA anyway.

#4, I am astounded that the Dad actually bothered to lift the phone and call you in stead of doing the standard No-Show.

Dad needs to buy her a nice 1993 Zenith 27" set with a nice plastic black modern cabinet. Then the girl can toss it when the tube shorts in a week or 2. He should be able to get one for $35.

Charles

[Eric H]

Bet they'd turn down this set for $35 too.

[Carmine]

I suppose if the response was "My daughter says she doesn't have room for a console TV." or "We need something that fits in an entertainment center, etc." I wouldn't have had the same reaction. (spoiled brat)

But look at the ad...

Wanted: 25" or larger television - $50

That tells me a brand-new 19" set wouldn't have cut the mustard either. As for finding a newer (working) set for $50, good luck. I haven't seen anybody selling used TVs since about 1990. Thrift stores have two choices, old consoles like mine for $99 that never sell, or 19" Chromacolor sets from the 70s.

Understand, I could really care less if she bought the set. It was a fluke that I even found the wanted ad. The reply of "too-old fashioned looking" was what killled me. To me, this would have been the right attitude by dad:

She turned up her nose and said a station wagon wasn't cool. I just said fine and walked off. After she figured out that I wasn't overly concerned with her motoring style she came back and we had a talk.

This is what parents are supposed to do, not let the kids call the shots. If they don't learn it young, they'll end up like my neighbors, getting their toys repossessed... Guy next door surprised the hell otta me by comming home with a near-new Dodge Ram truck last year. (I know they have little $$ to spare). Eventually they had to give it back, and probably trashed whatever credit they had. A couple months ago, he pulls up in an '86 K-car. Come to find that his dad offered him the car free years ago.

Oh yeah... The thing needs a tune-up BAD. I told him that an EFI 2.2L is a pretty good engine that will last a while, but he needs to tune it up. I even offered to help. He doesn't want to spend time working on it. OK, keep washing those cylinder walls down with raw gas and well see how long until that car is gone too.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Randy Bassham

My Dad bought me a 18 year old Dodge when I got my drivers license, he paid $200.00 for it.

I didn't own a car until after I graduated college. Didn't need it before that, parking on campus was a real pain anyway. Also looking at the expenses of insurance and maintenance and being a starving college student, it just didn't make sense. I got by....

[Randy Bassham]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

I didn't own a car until after I graduated college. Didn't need it before that, parking on campus was a real pain anyway. Also looking at the expenses of insurance and maintenance and being a starving college student, it just didn't make sense. I got by....

I think the main reason he bought the car was he didn't want me anywhere near his.

[dr.ido]

I guess I'm grumpy old fart at 27. I rarely bother to offer people gear anymore unless I know that they won't give me crap about it. Too many people have either turned down or abused and destroyed perfectly good TV's, audio gear and computers because they didn't think they were worth having.

I grew up fixing the stuff that other people threw away and still do so today. Most of the gear I own today is stuff that other people threw away.

My first car was a 1976 Toyota Crown. When I wrecked it I had no choice but to fix it myself. I stripped another car at one of those "you pull it" wrecking yards on their all you can carry day. Eventually the guy running the place took pity on me and allowed me to take two trips (probably because he wanted to close up and was tired up watching me crawl turtle like across the yard loaded down with parts). I got the car back together and while it looked like hell it lasted me another 18 months until it was defected. I haven't wrecked a car since.



I really don't know how some people get away with the crap they pull.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Cool looking set, I've always like wooden console sets that were made to be furniture. I guess I'm an old grouch too, I'll be 40 on July 8th. :p

[Einar72]

I AM a grumpy old fart. I'll be 52 on the 7th. Happy birthday to you, Nowhere Man 1966. I have fond memories of listening to that song when I was 11, in 1966, riding in my dad's 1966 Toyota Crown. How's that for tying the last two posts together?
I have always been happiest when I spend less than my peers for something. I will always be known for cobbling together cars, TV's, computers, whatever. I simply enjoy fixing things that others have given up on. I wish people would look at something for what it really is. Today's world is too filled with those who crave vanity, status and power. I feel sorry for those who can't be happy with what they have.

"Poor men wanna be rich, rich men wanna be kings,
And a king aint satisfied till he rules everything" --- Bruce Springsteen

[compucat]

I'm right in tune with you guys on this whole matter. Im a 1966 model too. I'll be 40 in October and I many of my favorite electronic items are ones I restored. I have a 1937 Philco tombstone radio in my living room that I use as frequently as it might have been when new. I love the way old stuff was built to last and today is perfectly serviceable. People look at it as though they can't believe something so old could actually still work. When I was a kid in 1975, we got a 13" color tv to replace the 12" black and white and we all thought we were in hog heaven.

People as so spoiled today that if real economic hardship ever came again (and I believe it will), many won't know how to handle it. The day may come when one may be grateful for any kind of tv no matter how old or what it may look like.