Well, here goes.....my Ma had four boys and worked two jobs as long as I could remember, and didn't sew with a machine if she could help it. She had a white with orange trim Brother machine from the late 60's early 70's, with push-button reverse. It had some terminal issue, and when I wanted to use it for home ec we took it to be looked at, and the man in Evansdale pushed it back across the counter and told her not to spend anything on it. My teacher put me on an almond and white Bernina; probably one of the last generation before all of the electronic cards and controls were standard. A year went by, and (at age 14) I found work after school and in the weekends with a fellow in the interior of the city that repaired clocks, and had a brother that did sewing machines. Come to find out these two fought all of the time, and when the brother that did the sewing machines wanted to sell out and go to Texas, the clockmaker hired me on and ran it himself, as the business no longer warranted two full time skilled repairmen. I used to look at those Berninas and wish I had one pretty bad, but even a second-hand one was big bucks. The boss must have taken pity because he finally took me out to the shelf (where the unclaimed/unrepaired machines lived) and said he would help me scrounge out a decent machine and I could have it for the value of the parts. He recommended I grab something popular so I could get what I needed to repair it. I about had a redhead 66 with timing issues in a bentwood case picked out and he banged his leg on the top of the nastiest old wood portable case in the place-it had blue trim and white pebble grained Morocco paper covering, which looked distinctly worse for the wear. At first he lit in to cursing his brother who left it sticking out where it was, the basement door that wouldn't let it get pushed all the way back on the shelf, the burnt out light that wouldn't shine back there, the customer that wouldn't come get it, and anyone else he could line up a name or face to. Then he cocked his foot back to give it a boost across the room, thought better of it, told me to grab hold of it and cart it up front to be dismantled for the parts because "that *(&^ thing's lease just done run out!" When I lay it on the bench he sort of looked it over and looked at me a time or two and motioned me over. You can probably appreciate my apprehension given the evil humour he had been in, so I sort of dilly-dinked up there, and he told me that the machine was a 15 class, "bachelor's special" bulletproof and sound as a pound, provided I wanted to correct its issues. He even offered it to me for the cost of a few of the parts-$20! This was on the condition that it went home that night, and only reentered his shop when I was actually engaged in working on it; it was never to enter his back room again! Eventually, that little black machine went with me to Illinois, Minnesota, back to Iowa, and a few places around this state too. I replaced the old case with a walnut cabinet that the school de-aquisitioned when they consolidated home ec rooms, and just this autumn got a nice new abode in the form of a quarter sawn white oak 7 drawer cabinet with treadle base.
Cheers! I am off to bed.[ATTACH=CONFIG]383560[/ATTACH]
Chaz