Dear Long Island

Fidelity: faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support.

My phone pinged late Friday morning and moments later I was traveling through time.

I had just received a text message from my niece Kristin who had sent me a 1989 magazine ad that featured a photo of my brother Peter—Kristin’s father—when he became branch manager at Fidelity Investments’ Garden City office.

“Dear Long Island,” the ad proclaims alongside a photo of Peter with a very serious look on his face. “When it comes to your investments, I’LL EARN YOUR FIDELITY…Instead of investment ‘advice’, I’ll give you useful, objective information. The facts and nothing but the facts.”

It was such a jolt. I remember that advertisement so well. We had a copy mounted in a plexiglass frame that we used to keep on the dining room buffet.

When our oldest brother Jim was visiting from California, he couldn’t resist making a wisecrack about insider trading.

“Dear Long Island,” he said, “I’ll see you three to five.”

I’m not sure what happened to it, but I hope like hell somebody in the family held on to it. The text's arrival was particularly poignant as my widescreen TV had suddenly crapped out on me. There was no warning—unlike the TVs of yesteryear, which tended to fizzle at a slower pace and thus gave you a heads up.

All I did last Sunday evening was click the remote on and watch absolutely nothing happen.

I stayed relatively calm given the circumstances and my rather short fuse, particularly with machines.

I got hold of Samsung’s tech support people and they ran me through a series of steps, no which brought my TV back to life.

I asked what the next step was and they told me that I could ship the thing to their diagnostic team and they’d run some tests to find out what was going on.

Tune in Tomorrow

“How much is that going to cost?” I asked.

“It depends upon what they find.”

This television is several years old, a pre-pandemic purchase, by my sister’s reckoning, which makes it a fossil in today’s disposable tech environment.

And, of course, the TV repairmen that I grew up with have gone the way of the dodo.

Still, I was getting all twisted that I might be throwing away a working device, so I tried plugging the TV into a different outlet and the little red power light refused to glow.

No, UPS—ing the thing in for repairs would be throwing good money after bad.

The timing really blows seeing since these bitter cold nights we’ve been having in New York lately are tailor-made for Netflix and takeout.

And I’m trying to save money ahead of our family reunion in California next month, so I don’t appreciate the additional expense. But life doesn’t operate on anyone’s schedule.

It was time to buy a new TV, and I thought of how Peter used to give me advice on all my electronic purchases, giving me the facts and nothing but the facts about what I should buy.

My sister directed me to the New York Times’ Wire Cutter review section, I made the decision in record time--none of the hemming and hawing I usually do when making a major purchase.

The TV is sitting in my hallway waiting for my handyman to stop by tomorrow and put it together--along with a new display table I ordered for the occassion.

Yeah, Peter would’ve been able to put both these things together in five minutes blindfolded. But I’m not him.

There's no sense in damaging the new machine or letting it gather dust while I try to work up the gumption to read the instructions.

It’s been mighty quiet around here for the last week, and going without the TV reminds that I’ve been spending too much time in the living room on my keester.

Still, I’m looking forward to the new widescreen and I’m hoping Peter would be pleased.

Semper fidelis.