1940 Emerson Patriot Catalin

One Saturday in July, in the year 1972, Susan Edmonds and her family had a garage sale. I was thirteen years old.

I know it was July because it was a very hot day and I know it was a Saturday because I had fought with my father in the morning about not wanting to go to synagogue. The Edmonds’ garage sale, they had signs posted on nearly all of the trees of our street, Place des Pins, in Dollard des Ormeaux, a suburb of Montreal, was scheduled between 9am and noon. It was the exact time of the Saturday morning service at the Beth Tikvah Synagogue. The Edmondses were not Jewish so it is unlikely that Mrs. Edmonds turned to Mr. Edmonds and said, “Honey, maybe we should start after the Haftorah.”

I know it was 1972 because I had had my bar mitzvah in May and I had money. This story is a little bit about money and the only time I had money was after my bar mitzvah. Most of the gifts were in the form of savings bonds but a couple of envelopes contained cold hard cash.

Anyway, with my bar mitzvah now over I really didn't see the point of going to synagogue, but my father didn’t see it that way. The Zevys did not go to or have garage sales so I could not use that as an excuse, so instead I told my father I was going to go see Stevie Sheen’s grandmother in the hospital.

Now neither my father nor I for that matter knew whether Stevie Sheen even had a grandmother, but my father figured that if I wanted something bad enough to invent a sick grandmother, then maybe he should pick his fights.

What I wanted, or thought I wanted, was Susan Edmonds.

Stevie Sheen and I decided that the way to Susan Edmonds’ heart was through the junk her family had decided to sell.

It was, we thought, a very solid plan.

I would like to say that in the fifty years since I have hatched better plans with which to attract women. But I’m not sure I have. Of course, I can’t speak about Stevie Sheen.

Although neither Stevie nor I could be considered anything close to cool, we knew enough not to arrive right at 9:00am, so we rode our bikes over at 9:45 and, in a moment of sheer audacity, decided to drive right by a few times as if we had been just out for a bike ride when some vintage item caught our eyes.

Which would have been a very good plan had the Edmonds’ garage sale been an actual garage sale and not a sale of hand-me-down clothes previously worn by Susan Edmonds and her two sisters.

And so, Stevie and I were the only boys there. In retrospect, I realize we had hit the jackpot but at the time, I could only feel shame and embarrassment.

We stood there in frozen animation until Mrs. Edmonds said, “boys, if you hurry you can catch Musof.” No, she didn't say that.

What she said was, “Suzie look. Your little friends are here. Go get them a glass of lemonade.”

So, we stood there like the schmucks we were until Mr. Edmonds said, “boys, I wasn’t going to sell her, what with all this frou frou girls’ stuff, but if I get enough for it, I might part with my Emerson Patriot. Now just hold on while I go get it.”

Mr. Edmonds was only gone for about ten minutes but, although we didn't speak, for those ten minutes I’m pretty sure both Stevie and I thought we were about to buy a dog.

My mother was going to kill me.

But an Emerson Patriot was, thankfully, not a dog, it was, or so Mr. Edmonds said, a radio.

“Now she doesn’t work, but I'm sure all she needs is a couple of new capacitors and tubes and you’ll have her humming. You’ll be listening to the Expos in no time. Forty bucks and she’s all yours.”

I took out my wallet and gave Mr. Edmonds, with Susan Edmonds nowhere in sight, forty dollars, and Stevie and I sheepishly walked back to our bikes. I couldn’t ride with a broken-down Emerson in my hands, so Stevie rode next to me while I carried the radio in one arm and pushed my bike with the other.

Now Stevie, who had only the day prior helped me fix the chain on my bike, knew I didn't know what a capacitor or tube was. He also knew I couldn't walk into my house with a broken-down table radio.

He also didn’t have forty dollars.

So, he traded me three baseball cards for it. Maury Wills, Rusty Staub, and John Bocabella.

Mr. Sheen got the radio working in less time than Stevie took to fix the chain on my bike. We listened to a few Expos games on it in the backyard while playing catch.

Sound was pretty good but we both preferred our nifty transistor radios. I think Stevie felt he got the worst of the deal.

The Rusty Staub was a rookie card.

By the time the Sheens moved a few years later, the radio had stopped working, and it ended up on the curb for the garbageman.

Last year I bought one from a dealer in Miami. It was more than forty dollars.

I told the dealer it had sentimental value. “Is that right,” she said. “How so?”

“I actually owned one in 1972.”

I didn't tell her I only owned it for fifteen minutes. There are some things you just have to keep to yourself.

The End.