Before I could drive, I was interested in electronics. The circuits were beyond me but I knew enough to know I wanted to be an Electrical Engineer. I married my wife, Gwynne, after my junior year of electrical engineering & by that time I knew what I was doing & was totally into it. In fact, her & I went to a different Radio Shack almost every day to look for cheap electronic components on the Discount rack. I carried an aluminum fishing box, and had multiple banks of small plastic drawers filled with resistors, capacitors, transistors, ICs & all the other exciting technology that was emerging in those halcyon days. For at least a decade Radio Shack was reason enough to go out shopping.
While we were visiting California, Gwynne's mother's refrigerator broke. The electronic control panel was blinking, which meant the temperature control was out even though the physical part of the fridge was okay. For whatever reason, she didn't buy a new one, but you don't know how much you need a refrigerator until you don't have one, especially in the summer. It'd been a long time since I'd debugged a circuit but we'd been guests at her house for a week so I thought I'd at least give it a try. First I searched for the refrigerator & its symptoms on the Internet, quickly finding a repair forum & schematics. I had no tools or parts so the first thing that popped into my mind was Radio Shack.
The most exciting & interesting things in life are coincidences. As chance had it, in the newspaper that day was a story about how Radio Shack is closing all of their stores & they were having a 1 day Clearance Sale – that day, starting now. I hadn't shopped at RS for at least 2 decades but the old fever came back. I hurried Gwynne to the car, GoogleMapped the closest location, and we sped to get there. When we drove up to the big familiar sign, I had a wave of nostalgia & melancholy: thoughts of the past came flooding in. I almost couldn't go in the store because even on this momentous closing day, hardly anybody was there. After looking through the window for a minute, I got up the nerve and the familiar bell rang as we walked in.
It wasn't my Radio Shack of old, instead it was full of remote controlled helicopters, cell phones & BlueTooth speakers. There was only a tiny selection of electronic components but I figured I could redesign the circuit to fit what I could get. I was also able to buy the basic tools of an electronic engineer: soldering iron, wire-cutters, solder-sucker. It was with a feeling of deja vu & deep regret that I stood at the Clerks Counter buying the last thing I would ever buy at Radio Shack. I was quiet as we drove slowly back to Gwynne's mother's house.
It didn't take long: I removed the bad parts & soldered in new ones, put the circuit boards back into the refrigerator & turned the damn thing on: done & done. My wife & her mom were elated but I was withdrawn, thinking sadly to myself, now that Radio Shack is gone, I will never be able to do that again because when we stopped by again just to say goodbye later in the week, the shelves were empty.
Radio Shack
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Martin Hash
- Posts: 18807
- Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 2:02 pm
Radio Shack
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