Diving for Antiques

Every day I learn something new about disability services and particularly about providing for our students' technical needs. It is an ever-changing landscape. But one in a while, I get to go back in time, which can be an adventure all its own. Yesterday, I got to go back 46 years, to the start of my campus.

I've worked as an adaptive technologist (just one of my three titles) at St. Louis Community College for eight years. In that time, I've culled out a lot of old stuff, and brought in new stuff. We are housed in the library, since much of our equipment is checked out like regular library materials. It seems to be the sensible thing to do, and then there's that other thing..."it's how we've always done it."

Yesterday one of the librarians asked me when I was going to clean out the closet.

"What closet?"

"That one over there, do we even use any of that stuff any more?"

I have to admit, it must've been an invisible closet because I never noticed it before. She handed me a key and I dove in. Oh, the treasures I found. A Franklin Reader circa 1986. A RoadRunner circa 1992. Two 14-pound Library of Congress tape players, circa...sometime before time was even recorded. There were adjustable keyboards, two ancient Intelli-keys keyboards, one ginormous track-ball, two broken FM devices, and a bag of corroded batteries. But the piece de resistance...



A mint-condition Perkins Brailler, date-stamped October 11, 1962. Never used, not a speck of dust on or in it, not even a scuff mark on the case. Yes, it has a case, lined in red, with the instruction manual in the little pocket. The snap-locks on the case are still shiny as if never opened, and the gold "inspected by" seal is still underneath the handle.

I was stunned, to say the least. Of course, we don't need it, and obviously no one else has needed it in the last 46 years either, considering its condition. It will be sold at surplus, along with all the other things we don't need anymore. But for a while, just a little while, I'm going to leave it sitting in my office, where I can admire it and smell the funky, old-suitcasey-cardboardy smell of the case.

I wonder if the person who buys it at our surplus sale will know its value? Now we do everything electronically; the art of Braille is limited in reach and influence in the United States. This baby is a classic, the Cadillac of Braillers, an icon before the age of icons. Makes me realize how far we've come, yet how much we've lost in the meantime.