Roundie Horror

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Folks, I was at an auction on Saturday and while cruising through the house, I found a nice Zenith Roundie upstairs. It was the only thing in the room. Figuring what the heck, I plugged it in and got nothing but an overheating rectifier tube for the ten seconds that it was on. I inquired about it, was told that it wasn't for sale, but that with the blessing of the owners they would put it on the block for me.

Now, this was an old radioman's estate, so I was busy bidding on all sorts of old electronic crap and was getting pretty loaded down. My girlfriend had to go off into the house while they did a second auction for the furniture (with the tv). Well, the radio auction ended early as everything was only going for less that a dollar (with me the high bidder). So they let me have the whole heap for five bucks. At about that time, the girlfriend came out and said we had the Zenith for fifty cents!

Now for the horror part: the house went up for sale at that point, and with only one bidder, it sold pretty fast. Sixty grand for a three floor Victorian with three garages on two acres. Now the house was in bad shape, and on this very rainy day, water submerged the attic, flooded the second floor, and drizzled on the first floor. Regardless, the couple that won it declared that everyone get off the property ASAP, that they were going to move in that day. They had won most of the furniture, so they just loaded it all back up into their damp house. I tried to explain that it was going to take some time to get the tv down the stairs, and they said I had five minutes.

Before getting too pissed off, I took one last look at it. The tube had a brightener on it which I hadn't noticed. In fact, I don't think I would have started the whole mess if I knew it had. I pulled the brightener, some tubes, and left. I just wasn't ready to argue with someone who was willing to live in a flooded house.

I came back later to pick up a few radios that I had left out front and saw that new owners were busy filling a dumpster out front. Yep, the roundie was there, though pretty intact, along with a few console radios that had been in the rain the last two days. I hopped in, took the globe tubes from the radios, and said goodbye to my so briefly owned roundie. Maybe it still could have been saved, but the heavy rain had already waterlogged the cabinet on an already too heavy tv. I had carried so much gear that my arms just wouldn't work anymore.