My kid asked me why I keep a box of old broken radios in the garage

I mean, I was just showing him how to test a capacitor, and he points at this milk crate full of busted 90s boomboxes and clock radios. He goes, 'But you can't fix those, right? They're just junk.' I had to stop and think. I guess to him, if it's not worth money or can't run an app, it's trash. But I pulled out this one Panasonic RF-1400 that's missing half its dial cord. Told him about the time, maybe 15 years back, when a guy brought one in just like it, said it was the last thing his dad listened to ball games on. We got it working. It's not about the radio. It's about knowing you can make broken things whole again, even if it takes hours for a five dollar part. Maybe that sounds corny. Does anyone else hold onto old 'junk' projects just for the practice, or am I turning into a hoarder?

2 comments

2 Comments

mary6146d ago

That part about "knowing you can make broken things whole again" really got me. It's not corny at all. I have a shelf of old kitchen gadgets with bad motors for the same reason. Fixing something, even if it's worthless, proves you can figure it out. Your kid might not get it now, but that lesson is worth more than a working radio.

murray.betty6d ago

Yeah, that shelf of gadgets with bad motors... it's so real. My dad was like that, @mary614. He had this old lawnmower he'd never use, just tinker with on Saturdays. I thought it was junk, but he said the point was knowing which screw went where. It's like a quiet kind of confidence, you know?