"How strange to remember typewriters, with their jammed keys and snarled ribbons and the smudgy carbon paper for copies." Margaret Atwood
A few years before he passed away, my grandfather gave me an old Underwood typewriter. The page that he had ripped out of a magazine and rolled into the carriage to test the ribbon was still inside. He'd typed "joe hand." Poppy, which is what we called him, loved collecting old things, like cars and tools. He once went to a school auction and bought a truckload of computer monitors, keyboards, and cables, thinking he could create a kind of Frankenstein computer. The typewriter wasn't the first antique I'd gotten from him; in high school, I drove a 1973 VW Beetle that he'd bought, one that sat forgotten near his house. I learned to drive a stick shift on that car, buzzing my way around town.
The typewriter, though, was a showpiece. By the time I acquired it, the ribbon was dry, and I never took the time to replace it. But the Underwood looked beautiful sitting on a treadle sewing machine in our newly purchased home, built in 1936.
The second typewriter, an early 1950's model Royal, happened to be sitting in a bookstore here in Big Stone Gap, where everything was for sale because the owners were leaving. "How much for the typewriter?" I asked, noticing how forlorn it looked on an empty shelf. I'd seen it many times because it was perched near the door. They quoted me a price I couldn't refuse.
"I don't need a typewriter," I told my daughter, who stood beside me holding her books. "This is ridiculous."
"But you love typewriters," she pointed out. "You love old stuff."
She was right. So, I carried away a pile of books and one Royal typewriter with a frozen platen.
"What's this?" Bryan asked. "You have an old typewriter, already."
"I think I collect them now," I said.
Not long afterward, CBS Sunday Morning did a show on Tom Hanks, one of my favorite actors, specifically about his enthusiasm for typewriters. Hanks owns more than 250 of them, and he has written a book of stories called Uncommon Type. He also wrote a forward to a book about typewriters, where he listed eleven reasons why-in an age of screens where writing and deleting paperlessly, without smudges or the need for correction fluid-one should use a typewriter.
My favorite reason is number 6:
"You take great pleasure in the tactile experience of typing——the sound, the physical quality of touch, the report and action of type-bell-return, the carriage, and the satisfaction of pulling a completed page out of the machine, raaappp!"
I found my third typewriter, a 1960's Royal in a vintage store on the Eastern Shore of Virginia near Onancocke. Riley and I were antiquing while Landon was nearby at Wallop's Space Flight Center at space camp. I saw the typewriter on the bottom shelf (I can spot them at 50 paces) and couldn't believe the price tag. A steal.
"I don't need another typewriter," I told Riley.
"But mom," she said, "you love typewriters." She held up the vintage doll she was hoping I'd buy.
"It is cheap," I said. "But what would I do with it? It's just going to sit there."
"Maybe you'll be inspired by it," Riley said. She clutched the doll. I knew her strategy: if I got the typewriter for myself-something I did not need-I couldn't tell her she didn't need another doll.
She's nine. Smart girl.
I left it on the shelf that day, a holdover from my frugal days. My trick is to leave things on the shelves, and wait to see if they haunt me afterwards, or if they fade from memory. Most of the time, I forget about them, so I save money and space in the process.
But the typewriter nagged at me, because I loved its look, nestled in a case with the little key still attached. The price was so low they wouldn't even haggle. And if I got this one, which would make three, it would likely be the one of the three that I could actually use.
Tom Hanks' reason # 9 for using a typewriter:
"You own a typewriter...The ribbon is fresh. You keep the machine out on a table at the correct height, not locked away in a closet still in its case. You have next to it a small stack of stationary and maybe some envelopes. The typewriter is ready and easy to use any time of the day."
I ordered a fresh ribbon and sat down to practice my typing. Unlike computer keyboards these days, which are practically flat, the typewriter keys plunge toward the bottom, forcing your fingers to do calisthenics to make the metal letter tap the platen. It feels awkward for a while, like balancing on roller skates. But the sound of the keys tapping is the sound of work being done, the zip of the platen signals the end of a row, one more line complete. It's a kind of satisfaction the quiet of a computer doesn't offer.
The fourth typewriter was waiting for me at a yard sale on Sunday, just after church. I literally stepped across the street and into a yard, where it sat on a fold-out table: it was exactly the one I'd been looking for online: a small Webster, teal blue.
"Ohhh, mom," Riley breathed.
"I don't need another typewriter," I said, with a sideways glance at my husband.
"Just get it," he said. "What's one more?"
"Ten bucks," the yard seller announced. And that was that.
Riley took the little typewriter to her room after we'd installed a fresh ribbon. I heard the clickety-clack of keys. Music.
Tom Hanks' latest reason for using a typewriter: it can be a source of distraction when you're recovering from a pandemic-level virus:
Here's hoping that won't be necessary in my household. But if it does come here, I've got four of them to get me through.