I was shocked this week when an 18-year-old woman visiting the newspaper office asked if she could touch and closely examine the Burroughs cash register that sits on our front counter.

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with that machine since I joined the newspaper staff more than 50 years ago. I’ve never considered it old, since it is newer than the first cash register I used. I’ve forgotten the maximum sale that could be entered but expect it was less than $100. Perhaps less than $10. It was used as a cash drawer in the fireworks stand—a place to store customer’s money so the bills and checks didn’t blow away.

While the old Burroughs has a tape and adds the sales, it doesn’t subtract and it doesn’t identify the clerk responsible for the transaction. Both are features I would like it to have.

For several years we have been unable to buy ribbons that fit the machine. When it comes time for a new ribbon, we transfer a ribbon of the proper size to the machine’s ribbon spools.

I changed the ribbon about two weeks ago and I wound the new ribbon upside down. Instead of printing sales transactions in black, it currently prints the transactions in red ink.

After all the trouble I had installing the new ribbon and getting it to properly advance, I decided I liked the red transactions just fine. The ribbon changing process must have been entertaining for when the photos for the last issue of this newspaper were presented, I found two taken of a frustrated me while installing the new ribbon.

The office visitor didn’t get to observe the ribbon replacement process but she had lots of questions about how the machine worked. For example she asked why it had a handle and why it has 80 keys. I could answer those questions but I have no idea when it was built but before it came to Superior probably more than 60 years ago, it was used by a Fairbury newspaper.

After showing the features of the Burroughs register, I mention we had an even older register upstairs. It is a wooden box made by the National Cash Register Company. It has a tape on which transactions can be recorded by the clerk, but it doesn’t print the transaction. The register has an ink well which I assume the sales clerk was to tip his pen in before writing the details of the transaction on the paper tape.

Our office supply department stocks new cash registers and I’ve thought about replacing the Burroughs. But that is easier said than done. The new register would require electricity and we don’t have electrical power on our front counter.  Making the necessary electrical system changes would probably cost more than the new cash register.

Since a majority of our sales are either charged or paid with a credit card, we just keep making do with the old Burroughs.

The visitor asked to see the NCR register and I took her upstairs to the store room. 

She didn’t comment on my collection of old computers, some of which are more than 40 years old. That collection includes my first portable. It came with a carrying handle but it is not a lap top. It weighs about 30 pounds. She did spy a box of rotary dial telephones and said “Those really existed?”

She went on to explain she had heard about rotary dial phones but since she had never seen one, she didn’t think they had ever existed.

Earlier in the week I shared on my Facebook page a picture taken in 1977 Annice Utecht, Bobby Wilhelems and a third person I don’t recognize. I’ve forgotten why the picture was made but the subject are holding a book with a picture of a rotary dial telephone. From the title it appears the book contained instructions on how to use a dial telephone.

A few days ago I was talking with a government agency and the representative asked for security reasons I use my cell phone to submit my picture to their office while the conversation was underway. They couldn’t believe I didn’t have a phone with that capability.

I didn’t tell them I still have a rotary dial phone hanging on my office wall. It is mostly for decoration and is no longer regularly used.

I suspect my young visitor had a cell phone with her that could have transmitted the required picture.

Before following me back downstairs, the visitor spied the manual typewriter I bought to use while in high school. I not only used that machine while attending college but I brought it with me to the newspaper. It was in daily use until Irene Barfknecht retired. I suspect it is about 75 years old and it still works.

After the visitor asked how a typewriter worked, I inserted a piece of paper in the one I currently have it my office and typed “It is time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.” I showed her my typing example and she laughed. And then asked if she could try.

Sometimes there are still applications where old is better. About a month ago I was talking with an envelope salesperson looking for a particular size of coin envelope with a thumb slot. The company didn’t stock the size of envelope I wanted but they did have one I could cut to size.

The sales person reminded me it didn’t have the thumb slot and said a custom order was necessary for the desired envelop and the minimum order for the company to tool up would be several thousand pieces.

I said that was not a problem. I didn’t expect the company to make a special envelope. We could cut the envelope to size and add the thumb cut. She was surprised we could do the work as most print shops are no longer equipped for what the trade calls die-cutting. But thanks to a press we have that was made in Germany about 75 years ago, we can easily do the job.

Norris Alfred, the late publisher of the Polk Progress, had as his slogan, “Slower is Better.” His paper was the last newspaper in Nebraska to be printed by the letterpress method. I believe the Wymore paper was the first Nebraska newspaper to be printed by the offset method. Both papers are now closed. So perhaps first or last doesn’t matter. One’s success is determine by a different criteria.