Adventures at the Repair Cafe

Just to be clear what we are talking about, this clock radio appears to be one of the first ones ever made. It’s about half the size of a VCR (remember those?) and actually belonged to my wife’s mother. There is not a digital component to it, but I’m pretty sure the hands of the clock may have some kind of glow-in-the-dark things on them. But the radio works, and quite well at that. It has a nice resonance to it and gets most of the stations.

I spotted the calendar entry about two weeks ago (one of the advantages of being a newspaper editor is that you get to see the calendar entries first) and marked my own wall calendar.

While I had high hopes, I also knew the chances of getting the thing fixed were quite slim. So off we went to the library with our clock radio in tow. There, we encountered Dean Peterson, who among many other things, is quite handy and offered to take a look. While the prognosis was not good, he took it apart to see for sure. Lo and behold, it was not meant to be. Though Peterson was not able to fix the clock (to be honest, I don’t think anyone can) we were able to catch up. Turns out we had worked with each other a bit on a series of stories I did long ago about MTBE in our groundwater and the efforts by then state senator Byron Sher to combat it. It’s one of the reasons why we have double-lined gasoline storage tanks at stations now. Peterson was head of the county’s Environmental Health division and was critical in me getting the data I needed for my series. He retired a few years back and has been spending his time volunteering in a variety of ways including for the Burlingame Parks Foundation and leading kayak tours, among other pursuits. Seems once you are in service, it gets in your blood.

While in front of the library, my wife spotted the Bay Area Bike Mobile making repairs and she suggested we get my daughter’s bike’s frayed brake cable fixed. I did, and the helpful volunteers funded by regional grants were able to fix it lickety-split. They even offered handy advice on how to prevent such fraying in the future. Now, with the repaired bike, we were ready to hit the trail the next day with full confidence in our braking ability.

The point of the repair cafe is to keep things out of the landfill and to prove that sometimes what you are already have is good enough. They had small appliance repair, a sewing machine and even someone who could fix jewelry.

Cynthia Rider, who organizes the event for the library, said it was the brainchild of Lisa Rosenthal when she was on the library board and former Burlingame mayor Terry Nagel through her work with the Citizens Environmental Council. They have about three a year and now a total of about 11, Rider said. And they couldn’t do it without the volunteers who donate time, equipment and sometimes material to help, she added.

At the repair cafe, Rider said they once had six people get in there to sew repairs by hand to a hammock. Longtime volunteer Carol Nowlin regularly fixes jewelry mostly with sentimental value that people don’t want to take to a jeweler. A common repair is a lamp, and what is now known as the infamous “chicken” or “rooster” lamp. She said Peterson once fixed a lamp in 30 seconds. For Peterson, he said he enjoys fixing toys so he can show kids how things work.

To my mind, it was a great event and the fact that the library puts it on should definitely be applauded and encouraged. It’s fun. And if it keeps items out of the landfill and being used by families, even better.

Jon Mays is the editor in chief of the Daily Journal. He can be reached at jon@smdailyjournal.com. Follow Jon on Twitter @jonmays.