In high school and college I typed all my papers on the typewriter my Dad used when he was in school: an Underwood desk top model. It was black, tall, and elegant. So writerly! In grad school I found my own typer, a Royal Empress. It was the color of a Navy battleship and about as heavy. At some point, its innards did something to themselves and it no longer worked. I stashed it away and stubbornly moved it several times to new homes, and finally gave it away in 2005.
But I missed it and missed the joy of physically making words with a metal machine. This Spring I searched The EBay, and my joy was returned to me! I bid on a pretty little model, and lost. So I bid on another, and lost again. And a third time, lost. Determined to get the model I wanted (nothing fancy, a Smith Corona portable with a metal housing - I'm a typer not a curator), I bid on two simultaneously. No way, given my betting track record (read: cheap) was I likely to win both. Wrong!
One was a Smith Corona Classic -- big and heavy, for all that it is a portable, and mustard-colored. The second was a more compact Smith Corona Galaxie II, grey and ivory with a tidy footprint and responsive strike action. I gave the Classic to a friend who, mirabile dictu, was herself inspired to type letters once again.
The Galaxie II I have kept and, if I am true to form, will soon give a name to. But the tale does not end. For though I had two, loved the one and gave the other away, my lust for metal words was not satiated. I wanted -- needed -- a smaller, sleeker creature; one I might take with me when travelling or when I visit Hoja, a friend who values words and their making.
I returned to EBay and there my imagined machine sat -- without a single bid on it. Would I be so fortunate as to win her? Reader, I shall not keep you in suspense. I did and now she is mine. A dark-as-storm-clouds grey Royal Dart: made in Holland the snug-fitting case tells me. She is nothing grand. A collector's discussion list I frequent derides her plain visage and loud key strikes. I care not, for she is dark and comely.
She is also, sadly, in the repair shop. The ribbon-advance mechanism seems not to be working. But I am assured by the Magic Man who cures these ailments, that all will be well in a sevenday.
So my word machine life has come full-circle. What I gave away has returned, as it were. And my happiness is great.
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Image credits: The Underwood, Royal, and Smith-Corona pics are from the wonderful website, Machines of Loving Grace. The pics of the Royal Dart are from the EBay seller's posting. The electric Smith-Corona image is from this site.
