MR. HOLBROOKE SAVES TELEVISION FOR ME

Larry Holbrooke is not your ordinary do-it-in-a-hurry and get it done workman.

But let me go back to the beginning. Anybody who knows me knows that I am addicted to television - I admit it. TV was my only friend on the road in many more motels than I care to recall.

So when we moved out to this beautiful lot, surrounded by yellow pine hundreds of years old, we weren't able to get a clear shot on the horizon. so I went the only way possible - UP. I bought a 40 foot wind mill, disasssembled, reassembled, and crane hoisted a 10 foot C Band dish (state of the art at the time) to perch 45 feet above ground and over the tops of the pines!
Last month we got the news. As if January 1, C Band will no longer exist.

So we went to Dish Network this time as last time I had a brief and unhappy relationship with DirecTV - including the crew that came out and supposedly installed the system. (I found out from Larry of Dish Network that they hadn't even grounded their system.

So having Larry Holbrooke install the dish system for us was the complete opposite of the treatment we had gotten from the DirecTV crew.

Larry had been out to install Dish Network once before, but after attempting to get readings on the correct azimuth, he concluded that there was no place we could install.

But now I knew we were up against it. One thing we hadn't tried was shooting the azimuth from the top of the wind mill. So out comes out comes good guy Larry. I say that because Larry Holbrooke is the kind of guy who looks you in the eye when he talks to you and you instantly feel like you are with an old friend.

I explained to him that this was our last hope for having any appreciable television out here. I pointed out the perch on the wind mill and I could tell that he wasn't too crazy about climbing up that high. But climb, he did.

Then the bad news. He couldn't get a clear shot even from 40 feet in the air! I could not believe it! Turns out the Dish Network satellites fly pretty low on our horizon.

So I am about to go into dispair when Larry suggests we check out a point way over on the far edge of the office property, almost beyond our land. He shoots it and tells me that he can, indeed install.

I watched this man work all day by himself and incredibly he wired up the dish to not only the house but to the office as well -- at $5.00 a month it was as no brainer -- He wired all that up, then he buried all that cable! I helped him a little - very little with these legs - and I was amazed with the precision and clockwork in laying the cable.

When it became apparent he would be here most of the day I offered to make him a pizza - my symbol of respect and love - and why not? this Larry really appreciated that Larry.

So I rolled out a 12 inch pepperoni for him and he had a late lunch about 2PM, which gave me a chance to sit and visit with him, person to person -- not installer to customer. He is a staunch environmentalist, both towards wild life and the land - he is a man of the country, living down Cleghorn way.

He has his own little pond that attracts wonderful wild life fowl including sand hill cranes. He has cats and ferrets. Anybody that has cats is okay by me.

So I really needed to write this up because I want everyone (especially Dish Network itself) tg know that Larry Holbrooke is a professional and warm human being.