We carried a full shopping bag with us to the venue where we recently celebrated our former editor-in-chief, who was stepping down after 29 years at the helm of Observant. The bag held a fat Dutch dictionary from the 1980s; a stainless-steel ashtray, complete with matches; small padlocks (with an amazing purpose – more on that in a moment); and a receipt spike. All these items featured in our thank-you speech.
During a bit of office reshuffling, spring cleaning and clearing out the old kitchenette, we stumbled across some brilliant finds. The receipt spike – jokingly dubbed our “murder weapon” because of its sharp end – once held pieces of paper known as paarltjes, the classifieds that Observant used to fill an entire page with every week, back before the turn of the millennium. Three examples from September 1995: “For sale: white 1983 Honda Civic, ƒ1,200 o.n.o. Lovely little car!” “Deep inside… every woman wants a Banalitas member.” “Wijlre brewery looking for students to work one or more days per week.”
Anyone wanting to place a paarltje would simply stop by our office. In the age of social media and online marketplaces, these mini adverts are a thing of the past. The Banalitas fraternity is no more, that lovely little Honda is probably rusting away in a scrapyard somewhere, and we all know what became of the Brand beer brewery in Wijlre.
Too heavy to carry in a shopping bag was a vintage radio, which our former colleague Wammes Bos insists “just needs a new valve” to get it working again. We have our doubts and decided not to test his theory. We also unearthed a hideous little plastic tray with a cushion inside – a mouse pad with wrist support, as it turns out. And we own some fifteen dictionaries and style guides from a bygone era and academic publications by researchers long retired.
As for those padlocks I mentioned – they were an old-school anti-theft device, used to physically secure one’s PC to one’s desk just in case someone tried to walk off with the PC. This actually happened once, or so the story goes.
It would be a shame to throw it all away. Instead, we’re photographing our best finds for a weekly series next academic year, in honour of the university’s fiftieth anniversary. The name? Old Junk. If anything catches your eye, feel free to come and collect it. Just don’t forget to bring a shopping bag – a sturdy one, especially if it’s the radio you’re after.