The Book of Broken Things

Nobody chooses to be a repair person in a throwaway world. I inherited the fix-it shop from my grandfather, who inherited it from his father, who started it in 1932 repairing radios during the Depression. By the time it landed in my lap, the Westside Fix-It Shop was a relic—a cramped storefront stuffed with broken appliances, obsolete tools, and the lingering scent of solder and machine oil.

I kept it running more out of obligation than passion. Most days, I spent my time explaining to people that their devices were designed to be replaced, not repaired. "Planned obsolescence," I'd say, watching their faces fall. "It would cost more to fix than to buy new."

Then Marion Wu walked in with her grandfather's radio.

It was a rainy Tuesday morning in October. I was at my workbench, half-heartedly poking at a toaster that probably wasn't worth saving, when the bell above the door chimed. The woman who entered was maybe seventy, carrying something wrapped in a faded quilt.

"Are you the one who fixes things?" she asked, carefully setting her bundle on the counter.

"I try," I said. "But honestly, these days it's usually cheaper to—"

She unwrapped the quilt, revealing a 1940s Zenith tabletop radio. The wood cabinet was scratched but solid, its art deco curves still elegant after all these years.

"It was my grandfather's," she said. "He brought it with him when he came to America in 1947. It played every morning until last week." She touched the dial gently. "I know I could buy a new one. That's not the point."

I picked up the radio, feeling its weight. Modern electronics are all plastic and air, designed to be light, cheap, disposable. This was different—solid wood, metal, glass tubes that glowed like tiny suns when powered up.

"I'll take a look," I said. "But I should warn you—parts for these old tubes are hard to find."

Marion smiled. "Check the back room," she said. "Behind the filing cabinet, there's a cardboard box labeled 'Radio Parts - 1940s.' My grandfather used to work here."

I stared at her. "Your grandfather was Henry Wu?"

She nodded. "Dad said he was the best radio man in the city. Worked here until 1962."

I'd heard stories about Henry Wu from my grandfather. He'd been legendary in the repair community, known for fixing things others had declared hopeless. But I'd never connected those stories to the neat row of boxes in the back room, filled with carefully labeled components.

The next morning, I opened the shop early and retrieved the box Marion had mentioned. Inside, wrapped in tissue paper and organized with military precision, were dozens of radio tubes, resistors, and other components—a time capsule of 1940s electronics.

Working on the radio became an archaeology project. Each component I removed told a story. Some had been repaired before, tiny soldering marks showing where skilled hands had extended their life. Others bore handwritten labels in precise Chinese characters.

I found myself imagining Henry Wu at this same workbench, perhaps teaching my grandfather the secrets of these machines. Both men were gone now, but their knowledge lived on in the carefully preserved parts and tools they'd left behind.

The radio's problem turned out to be relatively simple—a burnt-out tube and some corroded connections. But as I worked, I discovered something else. Tucked inside the cabinet was a small notebook, its pages yellow with age. It was filled with repair notes in Henry's neat handwriting, documenting not just technical details but the stories behind each fix.

"Johnson family radio - fixed power transformer. Their son overseas. Need music to feel connected."

"Mrs. Rodriguez's set - replaced speaker. Uses it to teach English to neighborhood kids."

"Rev. Miller's radio - repaired antenna. Sunday services depend on it."

Each entry reminded me that these weren't just machines—they were connections to people's lives, their memories, their hopes.

When Marion returned a week later, I had the radio working perfectly. The warm glow of the tubes lit up the dial, and the rich sound of a jazz station filled the shop.

"I found this inside," I said, showing her the notebook. "I thought you might want it."

She opened it carefully, running her fingers over her grandfather's handwriting. "I remember him working on these," she said. "He used to say that every broken thing had a story, and fixing it meant becoming part of that story."

She looked up at me. "Do you know why he left China?"

I shook my head.

"He was a professor of electrical engineering in Shanghai. But during the war, he used his skills to repair radios for the resistance. When things got dangerous, he had to leave everything behind—except his knowledge." She smiled. "He always said America was the place where broken things—and broken people—could be fixed."

That conversation changed something in me. I started looking at the shop differently, seeing it not as a relic but as a repository of stories and skills passed down through generations.

I began keeping my own notebook, documenting not just repairs but the stories behind them:

"Emma's 1950s mixer - inherited from her grandmother. Still uses it to make Christmas cookies from the family recipe."

"Mr. Patel's turntable - bought with his first paycheck in 1975. His daughter's learning to love vinyl."

"Ms. Chen's sewing machine - survived three generations and two continents. Still making wedding dresses."

Word spread. People started bringing in things I'd never seen before—antique clocks, vintage cameras, musical instruments with histories longer than my lifetime. Each repair became a puzzle, requiring not just technical skill but detective work, imagination, and often help from unexpected sources.

Like the day someone brought in a 1960s guitar amplifier. I mentioned it to Marion during one of her visits (she'd become a regular, often bringing coffee and stories about her grandfather).

"Oh, Jimmy Chen used to repair those," she said. "He had a shop over on Elm Street. I think his daughter still has his old manuals."

One connection led to another. Soon I had a network of former repair people, collectors, and enthusiasts sharing knowledge, hunting down parts, teaching me skills that were in danger of being lost.

The shop's back room became a library of repair manuals, technical documents, and handwritten notes spanning nearly a century. But more importantly, it became a community hub. Old-timers would stop by to share stories and expertise. Young people, tired of disposable electronics, came to learn traditional repair skills.

One day, a teenager brought in a broken laptop. While I worked on it, he noticed the Zenith radio on my workbench.

"That's ancient," he said. "Why not just buy a new one?"

I told him Marion's story, then showed him how the radio worked—the elegant simplicity of its circuits, the warm glow of its tubes, the rich sound that no tiny speaker could match.

"Modern things are designed to be mysterious," I explained. "To keep you from understanding how they work. But these old machines want to teach you their secrets."

His eyes lit up. "Could you show me more?"

That's how the Saturday repair workshops started. Now, every weekend, the shop fills with people of all ages learning to fix things. We work on everything from vintage electronics to modern appliances, sharing tools, knowledge, and stories.

Marion still visits regularly. Last week, she brought in a box of her grandfather's old tools, each one labeled with its purpose and history.

"He would have loved this," she said, watching a young girl learn to solder under the guidance of a retired electronics teacher. "Not just the fixing, but the sharing."

I looked around the shop—at the shelves lined with repair manuals and notebooks, the workbenches where multiple generations worked side by side, the restored radios and record players and appliances waiting to return home. The air still smelled of solder and machine oil, but now it also carried the energy of discovery, the satisfaction of bringing broken things back to life.

On my workbench sits Henry Wu's notebook, joined now by dozens of others documenting repairs and stories spanning nearly a century. Each entry is a reminder that everything broken has a history, and every fix creates a connection—between past and present, between people and their cherished possessions, between generations of fixers sharing their knowledge.

Last month, a reporter asked me why I keep the shop running when it would be easier to sell the building and retire.

"Because some things are worth fixing," I said, thinking of all the stories and connections that had grown from Marion's first visit with her grandfather's radio. "And sometimes, fixing broken things helps fix broken connections too."

The bell above the door chimes, and a new customer enters, carrying something carefully wrapped. Another story begins, another chance to connect, another broken thing waiting to be understood and restored.

In a throwaway world, we're the keepers of connections—to objects, to stories, to each other. Every repair is an act of rebellion against disposability, a thread connecting past to present to future. And in that connection, we find something that can't be bought new or thrown away: the simple magic of understanding how things work, the satisfaction of making them whole again, and the joy of passing that knowledge on.