Anthony Oddo, the son of Italian immigrants, was a headstrong youth that had a knack for getting into trouble. In his teenage years he found work as a newsie. Does that evoke images of Christian Bale as Jack Kelly from Newsies for anybody else? While the details aren’t clear, Tony had broken his collarbone when he was thrown out of a hotel by the porter. In another incident, he slapped a woman for refusing to buy flowers from him. These incidents and others resulted in him being sentenced to the State Industrial School at Kearney. The experience failed to straighten him out as he was arrested for theft just a year later.
Brimming with potential and in desperate need of guidance, Tony found it in 1918 when he was admitted to Boys Town as one of its first five boys. Boys Town had just started as an institution three months earlier. It was Father Edward Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town, that would help turn his life around as a result of the lessons and values that he instilled in young Tony.
Tony got married in 1927 and had a couple of children while working in the Union Pacific Shops. His lifelong goal was to own a hamburger stand and while that wouldn’t happen until years later, he did go into business for himself when he opened a fruit store on 20th and Dodge.
Always a hearty eater, Tony was able to remain trim in his youth even after eating 24 hamburgers in a competition that he won. He would put on weight after he began working in the beer business and took clients out to middle-of-the-night dinners. He owned his expanding waist line and frequently referred to himself as a jolly fat man. He explained that he would eat the most when he was happiest and not to compensate for emotional needs. Even in 1942, he advocated eating hamburgers whenever you feel the pangs of hunger. As his weight approached 400 pounds, he admitted that things got out of hand.
Tony achieved his dream in 1956 when he opened Oddo’s Drive-In at 2410 S 13th St. His sandwiches were known for the unique names including the Pookie Snackenberger and the Mo-She-Fro. Likely the hero of local football players, he would give away pookie burgers to anybody that scored a touchdown. Gale Sayers is said to have eaten so many when he played for Central that his teammates named him Pookie. He claims that his restaurant was the first to allow customers to call-in orders from their tables or the parking lot.
Tony changed his life for the better once again in 1967 when doctors warned him that he was in danger of having a second heart attack. Tony was one to achieve whatever goal he set his mind to and lost over 100 pounds over the next seven months. He would go on to reach his goal weight of 260 pounds months later.
He had his eye on retirement when he listed his business for sale in 1968. He must not have received an offer that he liked as he was still running the restaurant when it burned to the ground a year later. Unfortunately, it was just one of multiple fires to have been started by arsonists that year. Rather than rebuild the restaurant and start over again, he opted for retirement.
Reflecting back on his life, he said that his heart and soul belonged to Boys Town. He even served as the national president for the Boys Town Association starting in 1953. Always a beloved figure in South Omaha, the community rallied around the man who was known as much for his generosity and his happy demeanor as his weight when he fell ill from heart issues.
Omaha Exploration 
Leave a comment