Nearly fifty-years ago I was working at the Middlebury Independent newspaper in a small northern Indiana, Amish community.  (See Post #111). The newspaper and the restaurant next door were owned by the same man and both were decorated with antiques. One thing that caught my eye was a 1915 National cash register that sat on the counter next to where I would drink my coffee. Das Dutchman Essenhaus was definitely the most famous restaurant in the area, but my food was usually complimentary at The Square Nail – a work benefit since the pay was lousy and the hours long. Both the paper and restaurant eventually went bankrupt and my last paycheck turned out to be that heavy, brass cash register.

There’s a similar model on eBay that is currently for sale for $1,000 (plus shipping), so it’s worth considerably more than what I was ever paid back then. The only problem is that I’ve had to lug it from home-to-home all these years from Michigan to Indiana to Illinois to Texas to Oregon and now to Florida. Twenty times it’s been relocated as a monument to my first job. It weighs at least a hundred pounds and was a chore to budge even as a strapping youth. It’s amazing that it’s still with me after all these years, now sitting on our garage floor waiting for my son to help me move it onto my office desk. I stumble over it every day now getting in and out of my car. I even bought some Brasso at the grocery store with intentions of cleaning it after all these years. However, it might just take too much effort, after taking the initiative to tackle some tarnished spots. 

After all these years, it bears the same scars of age as me. It became part of my life in 1974 and is the only personal possession that has persevered through all the changes. It has a chip in the glass top and needs some welding but it made it to our new home undamaged any further. The keys are operational and the wooden drawer opens with a ring, and is filled with knick-knacks not money. In fact, I thought we were missing a commemorative D-Day bottle of sand we collected on the beaches of Normandy a few years ago. It was safely tucked away in that drawer and now proudly displayed for the 77th anniversary next week. The National cash register itself had a 59-year history before ever coming into my life. If it could only talk.