Move Along

Typecast from my rescue typewriter

a 1924 Royal l0

found in a neighbor's garbage can in 1967

no kidding

Non-Onerous Quirks

Acquisition vs. Divestiture

About the time I was planning a thin-out of my relatively modest typewriter collection, along comes Michael Clemens' (clickthing) appeal for help with his divestiture. The depth of my own commitment was quickly revealed by my knee jerk reaction to his offer of a 1937 Underwood Champion. My modest collection did not yet include an Underwood, one of which I recalled from my grandfather's office. Of course I would give it a good home, and he wouldn't even need to pack it for shipment, as his home in the San Francisco Bay Area was a mere two hour drive from my location up in the golden, rollin' hills of California. Arrangements were made for a drive-by typewriter snatch from his front porch yesterday.

1937 Underwood Champion

Of course I had had the road trip planned as a great adventure. I would take the Triumph TR6 (after a quick tune-up), leaving by 5 am to catch the morning light for some artful photography in the Delta Region. I would follow my old route across Ryer Island that would involve slough crossings on two ferries - The Real McCoy and the J.T. Mack. The whole thing would be videoed, of course, including the perilous ferry crossings and myself sitting on the bench on Michael's porch typing him a thank you note using the typewriter I had just picked up. All would be artfully edited and posted, thus assuring my immortalization within the Typosphere.

In the end sloth, sanity, hot weather, and my everlasting project to-do list prevailed, and I drove our lowly AC-equipped Ford Explorer following the freeways, subsisting on fast food. The one time I did get the camera out, for a photo of the typing scene on Michael's front porch, I discovered there was no card in the thing.

No matter, the typewriter is the thing, and the Champion now rests among my stable of daily letter-writers in all of its glossy blackness. I love the keys on this generation of machines - the chrome-ringed concave plastic is one step advanced from the paper-under-glass keys, and my finger tips seem to like them. The font has a vintage look - all the better for adding interest to letters to my kids and grandkids, who ordinarily receive communication from the realm of texting and Facebook. 

Waiting for the J-Mack in 1969

Lakeside Wabi Sabi

Typecast from a 1957 Olympia SM3

The Essence of the Machine

ob·ses·sion  (b-sshn, b-)

n.

1. Compulsive preoccupation with a fixed idea or an unwanted feeling or emotion, often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety.

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Yep, that's pretty much it, right down to the anxiety part. It's been chronic now for about six months. I've found many ways to rationalize it, the strongest being that not only am I in complete control and can stop collecting at any time, but also that my typers get used pretty much daily. They write letters to my kids, grandkids, other family, and friends.

And often I get letters back. Today one arrived from my 16-year old granddaughter. Thanks to her other grandfather she has a typwriter of her own. And she gets it. She gets it better said and more concisely than authors I have read who have written entire books on typewriters without ever quite getting to the meat of it the way she has.

She not only gets it, but she's also got the hair standing on the back of my neck as I turn around to see if my typewriters are talking behind my back.

Typecasting with Double Agent Norm

Well, we've done it again ...

Yep, abandoned our cozy home, after spending hours that could have been happily spent in the recliner, instead cramming the minimal necessities of life into a tin box on wheels, then spend 8 hours in an even smaller box pulling the thing down the highway, stopping frequently to replenish gallon upon gallon of apparently liquid gold. And to what end? To squeeze it in among row upon row of hundreds of other tin boxes and spend good money for the privilege. The privilege of hearing the neighbors (and our) dogs bark, children squealing, dune buggies rasping.

And you know what? We love it. Our lists of things to do have blown away somewhere on that 400 miles of highway. We have our books and our doggies, and a few steps away from the trailer is a dune from the top off which we watched the sun descend into the Pacific Ocean; descending through a clear sky except for a thin band of cloud just above the horizon, seemingly arranged just so the sun could burnish it with a bit of gold as an elegant signature to wrap up the day. Long naps in sunny, salty air have refreshed us. Tonight we'll tuck into a cozy bed, wake to coffee from Trader Joes, and head out to explore California's Central Coast.