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The written word has captivated me for as long as I can remember. Sitting beside my mother, with the crickets peeling chords just outside the screened window, I was as much mesmerized by the patterned flow of black letters on white paper when she typed as I was by the pictures of the ephemerally beatific face of the Pokey Little Puppy (a victim of carpe diem if ever there was one) laying on the table in front of her.
I snuck into my father’s forbidden study while Dad was at work and Mom was outside hanging clothes in the May breeze. Books with long titles and some scribbled notes were all over my father’s oak desk. But the sirens’ song attraction was sitting there on top of the desk, in gleaming black with gold scroll — an Underwood typewriter, its name emblazoned boldly across the back paper feeder. Before that absurd age when everything private or anal is hilarious and I realized that Underwood and underwear shared some letters, the word Underwood merely evoked powerful images of something grandiose, and I used to wonder who Underwood was. A writer? Someone famous and rich, a man who typed? The owner of a vast company that made letters? I’m betting that Tom Hanks has asked these same questions, which is why collecting typewriters is his hobby.
Kneeling in my father’s chair, I found a clean sheet of paper and fed it under the roller until it rose into view like a cresting sun, waiting to start the day. I was 4.
I stared at the paper then, wishing I could write something magnificent, something worthy of the name “Underwood.” Instead, I stroked the keys, well-oiled with use, and idly watched the parade of meaningless characters on the top of the page. I discovered that by pushing many keys simultaneously, the strikers would lock into a confused tangle. I could occupy myself like this for minutes on end.
I only remember typing a few messages to family members after I learned to write, all of the script punctured by the two-toned ‘e’ that gave our machine its unique personality.
Somewhere along the way, we got rid of the Underwood, replacing it with a sterile, low-humming electric gizmo that allowed faster speeds, lighter touch, with less personality. Then came the Apple IIE computer with the neon green letters looking rather alien on a shimmering black background. Wraparound text suffused me with enthusiasm as I raced into the technological age, amazement grabbing me every time I considered the number of pages (at least 15!) that would fit on just one single-sided floppy disk.
Technology kept compressing information and time into smaller, more dense bits, and my fingers struggled to keep up. Now the written word is available in a rainbow of colors and textures. I can sit in front of the screen until I am bleary-eyed, scrolling through layers of fonts, trying each one out to see if a change in the slant of the characters will complement, somehow, the tone of the paragraph.
But in the end, even with my new gigabyte computer — and surrounded as I am by the inspiration of shelves of dusty books — I stare at the harsh light of a fern-grass terminal screen, the words stumbling around inside me, yearning to launch through my fingers and along electrical circuits on their way to memory chips, but finding themselves instead thwarted by an editorial hand that is stronger than the creative mind.
Would that I could again feel the cool etch of “Underwood” under my fingers. I could jam and unjam the keys to my heart’s content, not really worried about whether I had anything to say, after all.
Edward Thompson writes from Frederick and still remembers how to change out the typewriter ribbon and thread it properly — to begin again.
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Explaining to the 20-something crowd what 'Carriage Return' means and where it originated is one of life's simple pleasures.
I never typed in High School, or even in my first four years as an undergraduate. But I learned to type at Fort Holbird in Baltimore. In our typing class we said we were "clicking with Klukka." (spelling?) And she taught us the only way to write our intelligence reports. There was only one way. When I went to graduate school, my gift to myself was an electric typewriter that used film to put near perfect letters on the page. it even helped with my grades. Nice copy.
Ha! I was typing for undergrads and also more than one thesis, “the dotted quarter eighth note pattern” one comes to mind. Some typing I did at work required a clearance UGH that was a short-lived adventure. I had no route to community college during that time. My husband’s aunt taught college then and told me my contribution was inconsequential because all that mattered was “content,” not presentation or grammar or spelling. There were papers I typed I would never have turned in under my own name as they were presented to me. I was put in my place.
There was an Underwood at our home too! Then a smaller portable. I played as you did both there and at his dental office anytime the secretary was absent. I also rummaged the “ring drawer,” swiping a couple, and the private office with its magazines that were the stuff of nightmares. Sometimes I changed the recording on his phone 😬 attempting impersonations. This usually happened on Saturdays Dad worked and I was somewhat amok. Mostly I typed, mostly stories, and I too went on an Odyssey that involved some publication but mostly, just typing, and acquiring typewriters of all types and an early word processor before the computers (the ribbon could only be used ONCE,) and at work I was the one with the Selectric when the Selectric was IT. No other typewriter sounded like it. And when you had the best speed in the office the resulting noise could draw an audience. I have a tablet and phone now. I actually dislike this one-finger typing. I was already too arthritic for texting with thumbs when that came along - but I was among the first to encourage it🤔 I still have multiple keyboards around, including the old Remingtons on display that I understand others “collect” now. I used manual typewriters in several offices when I started working, and took tests on same when applying for those jobs. They do evoke for me a fondness I held in childhood that was neither encouraged nor discouraged. It kept me from ransacking the dental office. There was one skull. It was left there by the previous owner of the cabinet. I took it to school in fifth grade mostly to share the “weird smell” I still remember. That would be another story. My fascination with typing may have prevented who knows what I might have found to get myself in trouble.
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