It was as though the chocolate brown typewriter had a spotlight on it. There was no chance of passing by without admiring its beauty. I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.
This particular typewriter, an electric model, sat on a lower shelf at the local thrift store. I knew right away that I wouldnāt buy it; Iām a purist, more interested in manual typewriters. Still, this model was gorgeous, and I brushed my fingertips across its keys. I even took out my phone and snapped a photo of it, and I admit that Iāve pulled up that photo several times in the past week just to look at it.
My love affair with typewriters probably started when I was just a toddler, listening to the clickety-clack of my fatherās typewriter, a gray Royal with sleek black keys, as he typed up sermons and prayers for the church where he served as a pastor.Ā
My grandfather, too, a minister and avid letter writer, sat at his typewriter each day to knock out some words. Even though some of the keys stuck and the āaā key didnāt work anymore, he hunted and pecked his way through volumes of correspondence, diligently adding the āaāsā in by hand.
The unmistakable sound of a typewriter was the percussive soundtrack of my childhood.
I was given a second-hand typewriter in a blue case when I was in grade school. My very own! It flipped a switch in me. My love of words suddenly had a platform: I loved nothing more than typing stories, poems, or just lists of words. I typed letters and mailed them to relatives.Ā
Of course, these days, itās my laptop where I do most of my writing. My laptop slides easily into a backpack where I can take it with me. It goes with me on trips, out to my porch, even to a picnic table at a favorite park.Ā
Even though I love my laptop, it canāt quite replicate the honesty of a typewriter.Ā
Compared to a typewriter, the laptop almost seems gimmicky, a lightweight trinket that produces a few electronic noises and projects light from its screen.Ā
There is nothing subtle about a typewriter. Everyone nearby is going to know that youāre writing. Theyāll hear the ding! that announces the approach to the end of each line. It requires full commitment ā both mental and physical ā from the writer. Wrists must be up and the fingers must exert their power and really mean the words behind them. A typewriter canāt be slipped into a bag; it requires (and deserves) a dedicated space, where it sits proudly on a table or a desk.
(I dream of a cafe that has no internet access; inside, there would be Scrabble boards and a row of typewriters, where words and people and coffee and conversations were meant to be jumbled together.)
The way a classic Chevy catches the eyes of car lovers is surely similar to how I feel when I see a Royal, or a Corona, or an Underwood. Their classic shape will never go out of style. They are built to last, and I immediately want to stand over it, marvel at it, peer under the hood to appreciate the craftsmanship. I couldnāt tell you the first thing about how a computer works, but a typewriter is a straightforward beast; it lays bare all its moving parts and mechanisms. There is no trick in discerning the roles and relationships between the keys, typebars, and the ribbon of ink.
My college years were right on the precipice of the āendā of the era of typewriters and the dawn of ubiquitous personal computers. My freshman year, I typed my papers in my dorm room, a bottle of Wite-Out nearby to brush out mistakes. By the end of my college years, there were no typewriters to be found in the dorm rooms. The computer lab was where I typed up my papers (and miraculously deleted and moved paragraphs around at will!) to be stored on a floppy disk and be printed out later.
I was dazzled like everyone else. Iām still amazed to this day at the way computers and the internet continues to shape the way we communicate with one another.Ā
The typewriter was relegated to the closet for a while. Perhaps now itās more an object of nostalgia than actual practicality. But the typewriter, like a classic Chevy, will never lose its allure. In an uber-connected, light-on-screen world, the typewriter remains unhackable: It exists as something stalwart and real. Without apology.
