Wizards always gave best effort

They were, in their own way, almost like wizards.
It’s difficult to describe to today’s generation the wave of technology that washed over America in the years after World War II.
The best parallel would probably be the adoption of computers for use at home in the 1990s or the spread of the Internet today.
But the tidal wave of television seemed to happen faster than either of those.
One day, no one on your block had a TV. The next day, everybody did.
The simplicity of radio, which had been around for a couple of generations by then, was replaced by tower antennas and rotors, little gizmos that allowed you to turn the antenna outside the house without leaving the comfort of your living room. And because this was mass spread of an emerging technology, nothing ever worked quite the way it was supposed to.
That’s where the wizards came in.
From little shops in neighborhoods all over the county, a new breed of technology-driven worker emerged: The TV repairman.
I say “man” because most of them were men.
Most were, I suspect, World War II veterans who had worked with radio in the service. They were guys who weren’t intimidated by wiring and electricity and tubes, those magical glowing things that were somehow essential to keep “The Mickey Mouse Club” coming into your house after school.
Did they know what they were doing? Sometimes.
But I often think they were learning on the job, trouble-shooting each complaint call was a seminar for the next one.
Because TVs were expensive, in relative terms, they weren’t disposable the way so much of our technology is today. When the TV set “went on the fritz,” a call to the TV repairman was the order of the day.
And plenty could go wrong with those old black and white behemoths. You’d be watching your favorite program, maybe an episode of “Dragnet” or “I Led Three Lives for the FBI,” and suddenly the picture would go fuzzy.
Was it the set? Was it a weather front? Was it the HAM radio operator down the block?
Or, worse yet, maybe the picture wouldn’t be fuzzy but would start rolling like an endless scroll. You’d fiddle with the horizontal hold or maybe give the vertical hold a try, but inevitably you made things worse. And inevitably a parent would have to call the TV repairman.
Our particular wizard was a guy named Paul, who had a little shop beside a coal yard a few blocks away from our house. Was he the best in town? I have no idea. But he was the closest, and that counted.
I remember watching Paul work when I was a kid, standing out of his way like someone who doesn’t want to bother a surgeon working on a patient. He was calm and laconic and never seemed fazed by any of the problems the set threw at him. And he fixed most of them, often turning to his toolbox and pulling out a replacement for some mysterious tube or other that had decided not to let us watch “Dragnet” in peace.
Then, over the years, something happened. TV sets got cheaper in relative terms, and they became dramatically more dependable.
Shops like Paul’s and others I remember from my childhood began to disappear, evaporating like the mom and pop neighborhood groceries of the same era.
The last one I remember dealing with was run by a Mr. Wunderlich, not far from the Jay Garment Company plant. We had a castoff color set that was portable in name only. It weighed a ton.
Carrying to Mr. Wunderlich’s shop was something of an exercise in faith. I had no idea whether he could fix the thing. I’m not sure he had any idea either. But I knew he’d give it a try and do his best.
Just as Paul did. Just as all good wizards do.