What is that!?! It looked like some heavy piece of old machinery. I thought - what the heck is it? On closer inspection I found a date “1903.” Wow! This is old! The label read: Odell Typewriter. My mom had some old stuff in our home that she called… ‘antiques’ She loved them and would talk about how much money they were worth. This is old, it must be an antique! It’s got to be worth a lot! But how can I get this home with out my dad seeing it! To him all this stuff is junk and if he sees it, he'd make me toss it into the dump truck with the other heavy boxes.
Aagh! My mind started to race a thousand miles an hour. The other boxes! What could be in them… some are already in the truck and doomed for the dump! What’s in all the remaining boxes in the garage, more old priceless antiques? Then it struck me, there’s only one place Dad won’t see this old typewriter and that is behind the bench seat of our pickup truck. So I quickly took the typewriter out of the box, tilted the bench forward and carefully stashed it behind the seat. I tossed my sweatshirt on top of it, just in case, and pushed the bench seat back in place.
My heart was pounding so hard that I thought they might hear it! It's not stealing, I mean it's just junk, right? It would've just been thrown away like the others. Why am I so nervous? I glanced up trying to look natural. The deed was done!
No one saw me so I casually walked into the garage to get another box. I happened to pick one that was really heavy… I thought, this must be worth more then the last one. Repeating my plan, I hid on the far side of the truck and opened my second box. Another old typewriter! This one was made of solid brass - no wonder it was so heavy. I couldn’t throw it away, but I couldn’t let my Dad know either. Okay behind the seat you go!
When it was all over and we got home, dad hit the shower and I brought in the first typewriter to show my mother and two older sisters my treasure. I went back three more times for a total of four ancient typewriters saved – that was all I could fit behind the truck seat.
I had seen dozens more - each one unique and fascinating - as I opened up the boxes and checked out the others that I'd carried out to the dump truck, choosing what I thought were the four best. As I recounted the story, my sister’s boyfriend came to our house and got in on the last half of the story. He was so excited about the find that he offered to take me and my sister to the dump and try to find the other old typewriters. We went to the dump with high hopes and dreams of finding the big cache, but it was like walking around the massive government warehouse in the final scene of Raider’s of the Lost Ark only this was outside at the dump in a sea of junk. It was hopeless, the typewriters must have long since been buried.
I gave my mom and each of my two sisters a typewriter and kept the first one I saw, the 1903 Odell, for myself. I was a hero for many weeks as my family showed off their new antiques to all of their friends. I stood in the background playing with my model airplane toys and listened to them talk about how insightful I was (being only 12) to recognize they were such valuable treasures and then take great lengths to save them.
Here's a picture of my 1903 Odell typewriter, it now resides in a museum in India.
