The Dog Master

Blaine was a supervisor at one of the electronics shops at Hill Airforce base, and he was sharp. He could also be bitingly funny.

The basement of his house was full of TV carcasses, all playing, and he’d go from one to another, trying various techniques with equipment we didn’t have at the shop. Parts that looked perfectly good, but performed perfectly awful, would yield their secrets to his probing.

Blaine was our dog master, and the boss paid him a flat fee for each one fixed. If he fixed them fast, he made money, and if not, well...

One day I remember the boss answered the phone, and he sputtered for a few seconds before saying, "Damn you, Blaine, don’t you ever do that again!"

Later that day, Blaine showed up with a dog in the back of his station wagon, and I couldn’t resist asking him what he’d said to Roy.

"Oh, I just put on my best Mexican accent and said, ‘Hey, you TV son of the bitch, last week you fixa my TV, this week she’s alla burn up. You gonna buy me a new one, eh?" He added, "It was great. I thought Roy was going to have a stroke, all the stuttering and coughing he did."