The Crooked TV Story

1964

A True Story

Written 12/2011* 907 Words*

By Howard Yasgar

It was 1964, and my wife and I were living in Hialeah Florida.

I came to Florida in 1963, to manage an auto salvage business located on 46th Street in Miami.

The owner of the salvage business was my good friend Lou Gladstein.

Lou had suspected that his manager was stealing from him.

He was right, I found that the manager had stolen so much that the only solution was to close the operation down.

Once we closed the salvage business, my wife and I decided that rather than return to Connecticut we would stay in Florida for a while.

At the time, my mother was renting a room at the Cadillac Hotel on Miami Beach.

One day, my mother called me up and said that one of her girlfriends at the Cadillac Hotel was liquidating her furniture, because she was returning to New York.

So, my wife and I drove down to the Cadillac Hotel to look over what furniture she had for sale.

We found that all the furniture was old and worn out, so there was nothing there that we wanted.

As we were leaving, the woman said she had more furniture stored in the hotel basement.

We didn’t want to appear rude, so we agreed to look at it.

It was all a bunch of junk that no one wanted, however there was a 13-inch black and white TV set on a brass-colored metal wire stand that looked pretty good.

I asked the woman if the television worked, and she said yes, she said she had recently replaced it with a larger model.

She only wanted $40.00 for it, so I looked for an outlet to plug it in, but I couldn’t find one.

The lady appeared to be an honest person, so I took her word for it, and we bought the TV and the stand.

Once we got home, I immediately plugged the TV in.

Well, the lady hadn’t lied, the TV worked perfectly, the only problem was the picture was crooked.

One side of the TV picture was about two inches higher than the other.

I was sure it was an easy fix, all I needed to do was rotate the magnets on the back of the picture tube, perhaps they had jiggled loose when we brought the TV home in the car.

I took the back of the TV off, and there was a high voltage warning label inside.

It said, don’t touch, you could get electrocuted.

Well, I didn’t want to stick my hand inside and get electrocuted, so I put the back cover on it again.

I found a small 2-inch cardboard box and put it under one side of the TV to make the picture level.

My wife came into the room and saw the crooked picture and started laughing, she said she could never look at a TV with a crooked picture like that.

Back in 1964, to make a living, I was buying and selling automotive parts.

So, whenever I was out driving, out of curiosity I would drive by the auto salvage yard I had come to Florida to manage, I wanted to see if anyone else was leasing it yet.

One day, I saw several cars parked there, so I stopped to introduce myself.

They were 3 Cuban fellows from New Jersey, and they said they were going to lease the salvage yard.

They said that while they were waiting to get a junk yard license to be approved, they were all sleeping on the office floor and they wanted to know if I knew where they could buy a cheap TV set.

I told them I had a 13-inch TV for $50.00; the only problem was the picture was a little crooked.

One of the Cubans said, that was an easy fix, all you had to do was remove the back of the TV and move the magnets on the picture tube.

So, I sold them the crooked TV for $50.00.

About a year passed and I saw that the salvage yard was closed again, and the Cubans were gone, I stopped by to look, but they were really gone. The office was completely empty, and there was no TV.

About another two years passed, and one evening we had some guests over and someone suggested we go and get a pizza.

I remembered that there was a pizza store on East 4th Avenue in Hialeah.

The reason I remembered the pizza joint was because it was near the salvage yard I had once managed, and it was owned by a grizzly old guy who wasn’t even Italian.

It had been two or three years since I had been there, so I hoped that he was still alive and in business.

As we walked into the pizza store, the first thing I saw was up on a shelf in the back, it was my crooked TV set, the very same one with the lop-sided picture.

The pizza guy had two books under one side of the TV set to make the picture level.

The pizza man saw me looking at the TV, and he said, I have been meaning to fix that crooked picture.

I have been told it’s an easy fix; all you need to do is take off the back and rotate the magnets on the picture tube.