Word: fixes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...great fixer; whatever's broken I can fix it," said Jonathan. He led me to a row of long shelves where trucks, dolls and other toys lay piled up against each other. "I have that big Mack truck. Let me fix this; Lawrence wants it fixed...
...simple folklore that most small appliances are not as sturdily made as they used to be, or that getting defective ones repaired can be a multi-Excedrin headache. Says John Lavezzo, who has maintained a one-man, two-room, three-telephone Fix-It Shop in Boston for 39 years: "Today they don't want you to repair things. They want you to buy'em, use'em and throw'em away." He and other seasoned repairmen say that the substitution of brittle plastics for metal makes many machines more breakdown-prone, and they blame some...
...cheapness and abundance of electrical slaves pose almost insuperable problems for the professional Mr. Fix-It, who can afford neither the space nor the capital to stock an adequate inventory of spare parts. Even big department stores, such as Macy's in New York City and Hudson's in Detroit, treat conked-out appliances like leprosy cases. As a result, many frustrated owners simply stash away the mute, inoperable machines like dirty clothes until they have enough to fill a shopping bag and take to a good repair shop-if they can find...
They range from Old Curiosity Shops to assembly line emporiums. On State Street in Bangor, Me., Clarence Ellis has spent almost half of his 50 years fiddling with unruly appliances. He can fix anything but has little cess with newfangled mechanisms. When he needs an appliance for his own use, he scours the town dump for an old, dependable, repairable machine. "You're better off," he says, "with a good rebuilt vacuum cleaner than a new cheap one." Since it is hard to get parts for an appliance that is more than ten years old, Boston's Lavezzo...
...slicers and sizzlers seem so often to be designed for the junk heap. Most of the major manufacturers claim to stand by their products, as do, slightly reeling, the repairmen who can cope with them. Still, they don't make'em like they used to. Or fix...