R-Town: Otto the Antique Guy!

   

     Visiting Otto and Susan Smith was like going "home."  Probably because I spent many a days and nights at their house during my teenage years.  Why, you may ask?  Well you see, Otto and Susan are the parents of BFF, Kara.  And Why, you may ask again, am I interviewing them for R-Town?  That's easy….Otto is an antiquer, (I may have just made up that word) and has been doing so for over 40 years!  You might even say he's a professional!  People summon him to their garage sales when they have items they think he might be interested in!  Really...I'm not lying!  So why did he start antiquing?
     "When I was kid, I used to collect comic books, marbles, and little toys, and I think it just grew from that."  He went on to tell me that when he was dating Susan, her mother had a lot of antiques around the house and she had an old camelback trunk that he was fascinated by!  It got him thinking that maybe this is something he is REALLY interested in.  He then met a man who had a collection of old advertising tins, and he said "once I saw that collection and thought, that's what I want to do!"  He began collecting the tins by initially going to swap meets (San Bernardino Swap Meet was the closest one at the time) and he would occasionally run across an old tin from the early 1900's.  "In those days you could buy tins, tobacco tins, coffee cans, for about $5.  There are some tins worth thousands of dollars now a days."  As time progressed he was able to start buying items off the internet.
     At some point, Otto went from simply a collector and lover of antiques, to selling them.  "We had a bunch of older items that we would want to sell, right after the time Kara was born, and at one point we had a garage sale and made about $200, and I thought, what a great way to make some extra money and offset my hobby."  He didn't realize, at the time, how valuable some of his items were, and then decided to go out to the bigger swap meets, to find more valuable items.  "I went every weekend just to see if I could find the items I wanted," he said.  Otto would run into other collectors and they would talk and give him tips, or let him know other places he could go to find his antiques and where he could go to sell his items.  He met a man who let him know that he could go to the Costa Mesa Swap Meet and would be able to set up and sell his antiques.  He recalls one of his best days out at Costa Mesa, he returned with $600 and thought, "This is great!  I have some play money!"  This eventually evolved and he started going to the Rose Bowl.  "You hit the big time!" I said.  Otto still has his permanent spot at the Rose Bowl and goes once a month with items he purchases from Estate Sales, garage sales, swap meets, etc.  "What started off as a little hobby has become a pretty good source of income, in my retirement years."

     I wondered what the most fascinating item he has ever found was, and before I could ask Susan asked me if I remembered the Oscar that sat on their hearth for years.  I vaguely remembered it and they told me it didn't have a name on it, and wasn't painted gold, but it was indeed an Oscar.  Otto told me the story about how he bought it off a guy in Palm Springs for $25 and after years of having it, he ended up selling it to a place in Hollywood (Hollywood Book Store) that collected old Hollywood memorabilia and found out it WAS an Oscar.  They advertised it in an antique magazine (this is before the days of internet) and a buyer called and gave Otto $1300 for it!  Years later, a gentleman contacted Otto about the Oscar and offered him $5000 for it!  Unfortunately, he didn't have it anymore.
     "Was that the most lucrative item you've found?" I wondered.   Surprisingly, it was not.  Otto told me the story of how he came across a Salesman Sample (which I had no idea what this was).  "In the old days, when salesman would go around to various stores or what not, they would bring miniature items of what they were selling.  It's an actual working model, just miniaturized, of what they are selling."  Otto had found a Salesman Sample of an early horse-drawn road grater,  in the original wooden box that was about 4 feet long, and bought it for $200 and ended up selling it for $2000.  "Long story short, we were able to take a nice little vacation after that!"
     As time has progressed, antiquing has become quite popular.  Even TV has capitalized on it with shows such as Antique Road Show, which Otto and Susan visited about a year or so ago.  Otto had an old porcelain sign that he knew was rare and was in great condition.  He wanted to see what the "professional" appraisers thought it would be worth.  Once they got down there, they waited in line for 4 hours, and were separated by the various items people had.  When Otto reached his appraiser, the guy said he had never seen this sign before, which told Otto this sign is extremely rare.  He was told it was worth $1000, but Otto knew it was worth much more.  Susan had an old antique box, and when they sat down with the lady who appraised such items, all the lady had to say was "well, sometimes a box is just a box."  Very disappointing.
     Now that the internet is here, the whole process of antiquing has become a lot easier.  Susan recalled  the days when, "he would come home with items and we wouldn't know what they were.  We would have to go to the Smiley Library and look things up!  Now it's as simple as looking it up online and seeing what the item is and then finding out the value."
 

R-Town: Playworks; Kelli's Vision for Helping Children.

   
     When I first met Kelli Willms, she was a mo-ped drivin', drum playin', General Public listenin' girl! Yep, we were in Junior High and hadn't a care in the world.  We spent one summer cruising around Redlands on her mo-ped, visiting friends, and being typical teenage girls.  We had the same taste in music and my first concert was supposed to be General Public with her, but my parents ended up not letting me go!  :(   (LOL)  As we got older, we drifted a part, and then after High School I didn't see her for years!  Then one day, about 8 years ago, ours paths crossed again…at Cuca's, here in town!  Thanks to that day, and Facebook, we've been able to remain in contact.  I was very excited that she agreed to be a part of R-Town because I think that what she does for a living is extraordinary!  Kelli is a Pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist and is the owner of Playworks here in Redlands (www.Playworks.cc) .  
     As I walked into Playworks, I immediately noticed 2 things;  the place was REALLY clean and it smelled REALLY good!  Everything is very neat and orderly and everything has it's own place.  As I sat in the lobby, I observed children coming and going, and all very confident and happy with being at Playworks.  
      When I arrived, I was immediately greeted and hugged by Carol, her office manager and mom.  Soon after, Kelli came out and greeted me, after she hugged a little girl goodbye.  The little girl was very excited to show her mom her Disney Princess pages she colored!  
     Kelli's next client was a boy named Zach, who had been diagnosed with Autism at the age of 2.  (He is now 10)  When he came to Playworks he was non-verbal, he didn't respond to his name, would flap his hands, and would lay in the fetal position on the floor, lining up cars.  Kelli told me that if anyone would try and move the cars and join him in play, he would scream and cry and get upset, and even panic.  He would have to immediately put the car back into position.  I asked her if this was a typical sign of autism.  "It can be," she replied.  "Kids with autism can have repetitive behaviors, and so for him, this was one of his repetitive behaviors.  But the reason he would do it was because he couldn't plan the motor sequence to take a car and push it, and he would just control the play where he would hyper-focus on it visually so if you joined him in play, you are disrupting that visual pattern he is making."  She continued to explain to me how he, at first, had trouble regulating his emotions and behavior, and he was difficult to engage, so that was what she really focused on.  Kelli would create a line of her own cars and maybe ever so slightly move one of them.  "It's a process" she explained.  "A long process of helping him become less rigid and more engaged."  Kelli, along with his mother, focused on following his lead, engaging him in purposeful interaction, and supporting him to communicate his intentions.  
     "When families come to you, are they at a loss, or feeling very frustrated?" I asked.  "Depends on the family, but a lot of them are in crisis, especially when the kids are young and this is their first therapy experience," she explains.  She tells me the story about when this boy came to her, his parents, aunt and grandma all came, and mom was trying to engage him in the ball pit and had tears in her eyes because he was so difficult to engage.  As she is telling me this story, I can't help but think of the heartache the mom was going through because here she has this precious toddler who she wants to love on and play with, and is getting no response from.  She doesn't know how to connect with him.  
     I asked about how long did it take for him to begin responding and she explained how it's a process and it varies for each child and family.  "Some kids show a positive response to intervention fairly quickly.  Others take longer.  You have to find the right fit between the child, family, and intervention program.  Zach was diagnosed early.  He responded exceptionally well to intervention and his mom really embraced the process.  He has achieved so many milestones in the last few years - learning to read, riding a bicycle, jumping off the diving board, writing and illustrating a journal, attending his first concert (front row!), completing his first science fair project, and being invited to his first sleep over.  He is an amazing kid.  He’s engaged and conversational, quite charming really.  He has so many plans for himself and inspires me by setting goals for himself (e.g., swimming in the deep end) and achieving those goals.  Zach really is the sweetest kid I’ve ever known - with or without autism.  He still comes to Playworks 4 days a week to work on areas including comprehension, articulation, conversational skills, and social thinking. He wants to be a rockstar when he grows up.  In my mind, he already is… He always asks me, “Kelli, when I am a grown up, will you go to my concert/monster truck race/art show?  Will you say ‘whoohoo' and clap and cheer me on?”  He loves to ask me these questions because he can predict my response, “Sweet boy I have been cheering you on since you were just two years old.  You know I will always cheer you on.” 
     It is stories like this that get me teary-eyed or give me chills.  She has many "feel-good" stories like this one that just reaffirms that what she does is extraordinary.  
     "When you were in college, did you have a vision of Playworks?" 
     "I did…it was by my Senior year in college.  My advisor at the U of R started the same year I started at Redlands, and she and I clicked immediately.  She had a private practice and worked with kids with Autism…I was interested in kids with Autism anyway, and she started teaching me."
     Kelli sought out every internship that she could find to start learning more about kids with typical development, kids with Autism, kids with different special needs, would tutor kids with Autism, and worked with babies and toddlers with Down Syndrome.  Once she graduated, she began working at Children's Hospital in L.A. and she told me "the day I got my license I started my practice."  She rented a tiny office on Cajon St. here in Redlands and had two clients.  Over time, her practice grew and in 2001 she was able to expand to her current location, which is a 1700 sq. foot free-standing building on a quiet residential street just off State St. in downtown Redlands.  "It's very important to me that the clinic is both professional and child-friendly," she stated.  Playworks features a sensorimotor gym (which includes a ball pit!) along with two other large therapy rooms.  One therapy room is designed around a custom "Cat in the Hat" mural, while the other room is designed with younger children in mind and is designed around Eric Carle's classic, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."  "Our services include speech-language therapy, occupational therapy, developmental intervention, social communication groups, and parent training/consultation." In the 13 years of being in this location I wondered if she felt like she's outgrown it.  "I would love to expand to about 4000 sq. feet with higher ceilings for suspended equipment!"  Playworks is located at 112 Eleventh St., Redlands, Ca 92374 and they can be reached at 909-792-0543.  

 April is Autism Awareness Month!