My pal Amy King (who wrote the amazing PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ and DUST OF 100 DOGS) is over on the blog of another friend, Steph Bowe (GIRL SAVES BOY, also amazing) to promote VERA - and the post includes a photo of Amy in high school at a typewriter.
One of the commenters mentioned she had never seen a typewriter, except in a museum, and that she can't imagine what it would be like to type on one.
Argghhh.
I had an ancient IBM typewriter, one of the first electric models, stored in my bedroom as a child, so of course I turned it on and taught myself to type by the time I was 10. The carriage was so heavy that when you hit the carriage return (you used to have to hit what is now the ENTER key whenever you reached the end of a line, you young folks - I seem to remember a small ding would alert you that you were getting close) it would displace the entire huge typewriter an inch or so and make everything on the desk dance a bit. So I got good at type/return/yank typewriter back on desk/catch things before they fell off.
I still have that typewriter. Still remember the hum of the motor and the clank of the keys. Still remember the joy of writing on it.
(Note to parents: If you want a child to become a writer, not a bad idea to house her in a room filled with books and a typewriter.)
6 comments:
I used the expression "he drank the Kool-Aid" to my secretary not too long ago. She stared blankly at me. I had to explain that. (And yeah, I'm old enough to still say "secretary" instead of "assistant.") Perhaps we ARE old??!!!
Bet they don't know what carbon paper is either!
I remember using an electric typewriter at home and at work. And the first computer we had at home was a DOS-based Wang...almost as bad as a typewriter!!!
Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane Sara!
Ack! Only in a ... museum?
Okay, where'd I put my cane and my geritol?
Though, to be fair, we never had an electric typewriter in the house. We had Mom's old manual from when she was about 16, and by the time I needed to do typed school papers in high school in the early 80s, Dad's office had this nifty new gadget called a word processor. (Super slow, really clunky, and not many options, just something thrown in with the basic software, but still--you typed, saved, and printed, and it was like a miracle.)
Ooo-I could have gone all day without reading that! My dad had an old manual typewriter, and that's what I learned on. When I got an electric typewriter, I was in heaven!!
Ah for the good old days--but I have to admit, I'd have to do serious harm to anyone who tried to take my computer!
Ha ha! I know, kids these days!! ;) Sometimes I'm shocked at the huge leap this generation has taken in terms of technology. My mother-in-law had a rotary phone that she let my kids play with and I had to explain to them what it was!
We had a typewriter just like the one you described. My dad typed a letter to his parents on it every week. Thanks for helping me remember that little detail. It's a nice memory.
Amy
I try to avoid talking to my son about typewriters. When I told him that when I was his age there were only three TV networks he looked at me as if I were a few fries--and the Shreck toy--short of Happy Meal.
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