Skip to content

Welcoming a new friend

Pipestone Flyer

Vol 15. Issue 7, Leduc - Wetaskiwin Pipestone Flyer

Recently I wrote about my experiences after an old friend of mine passed away the last week of January. I would like to thank everyone that sent cards and letters of condolences and the plates of food to the house last week. Your outpouring of support was really touching, suffering the death of your TV can be a traumatic experience.

Okay, for the record no one sent cards or letters of support, and the only food that got delivered to the door was something the dog picked up off the sidewalk, and she is still mad at me for taking it away from her. Whatever happened to the good-old days when people did send trays of food to someone's house for no real reason?

So this week I thought I should finish this tale of the TV.  For those that missed last week's chapter my old 27-inch tube TV finally gave up the ghost after more than 22 years of loyal service. Now I was perplexed about what to do next, do I go out and find an expensive modern TV or do I go to the second hand store and try to get a real bargain.

Well, I decided to do some research on this subject so I headed out to my local thrift store to check out what they had on hand. I expected to find a wide range of gently used electronics waiting for a new home. To my shock  and surprise they had no 8 track players, 286 computers or beta-max VCR's there. I did managed to find one old 8 track tape, but not being a big fan of Big Mike and The Grease  Monkey's live at the lube rack recording , I took a pass on buying that.

I was equally shocked they had no black and white TVs. What has become of society? Has the recycle movement taken over so much that people head to the recycle centers instead of the thrift stores?  Where were the old Atari game machines, TI99/4a's, big old floppy disks, and pong game players? Has throwing things into dumpsters late at night become more acceptable way of doing things?

So I took a good look at their selection of TV's. They had a couple 12 inch models that looked like maybe they had a 70's vintage to them but after a closer inspection they were just dirty. I did take a good look at another big tube TV but after I tired to pick up one end and realized it was going to take three large linebackers and some grease to get it in my house I decided against it.

In the end I went to a store and bought a brand new, 40 inch flat screen TV.  Modern technology is nice. It has been an interesting trip, between hauling the old TV out, to assembling the stand for the flat screen and realizing that instructions written in French only make for some interesting use of English swear words.