Nostalgia: Typewriter

When I was growing up, typewriters were almost obsolete.  Almost.  I had to write a few school papers on a typewriter. This was the mid 80’s, and home computers were crazy expensive back then.  Nobody in my neighborhood had one.  So, whenever I had an assignment that couldn’t be handwritten, I had to drag the old Remington typewriter out of the basement.  The thing was built like a tank.  The internal mechanisms were housed inside a heavy gauge, olive drab steel shell.

You didn’t want to commit the cardinal sin of making a typo on a typewritten paper.  Remember the rule: I before E except after C.  Except there are a lot of exceptions. The word glacier is one of them.

When I graduated to junior high school, I was happy to see there was a computer lab outfitted with a couple IBMs, a couple Apple II series, a bunch of Commodore 64s, and two dot matrix printers.  At last, I had made the leap into the computer age.

I haven’t thought about typewriters for almost three decades.  That is, until I saw one set out on the curb next to a garbage can last week.  It wasn’t a Remington, but it had that same heavy steel construction.  I picked the thing up and carried it a half mile back to my apartment.  I guess I was motivated by the nostalgia.

Maybe I’ll hang on to the machine and see if I go through it.  If nothing else, it has some value in scrap weight.  If you’ve never written anything on an old school typewriter, I suggest you give it a try at least once.  There is something kind of cool about – something I can’t quite pinpoint.  See for yourself.

Keep writing, keep revising, and be kind.

__Dev