Journal of a Living Lady #87
Nancy White Kelly
Contemporary society! What happened to those
days of writing with a number two pencil and a yellow pad? Where did the manual
typewriters with the sticking keys go?
Computers and word processors are technical
marvels I admit. Old manual typewriters, though, are to a veteran writer what
the hammer and chisel were to the
stone-age cutters: a primitive reminder of the yonder years of writing.
Other than the smudgy carbon paper and the white liquid that thickens quicker
than gravy, I miss those simpler, one-font days.
My first typewriter was a Christmas gift from
my parents when I was fifteen-years-old. I never got the horse or piano I
always had on my Christmas list, but I finally did get the typewriter in
1959. It was my most memorable gift ever. It had a colorful turquoise metal
body and fit snugly in a leatherette case that locked with a key. I wonder now
why anybody would want to lock a typewriter unless it was keep bratty siblings
from playing with such a serious instrument.
Attached to the Christmas typewriter was a
note from my daddy telling me to “go therefore and write the Great American
Novel.” I found out later he didn’t really think I could. Not then.
Exasperated at my youthful confidence, he finally convinced me that fifteen
years was hardly adequate time to experience enough of life to write
convincingly. He did give me hope that at some time in the distant future, I
would accumulate enough experience, joy, and pain to give Herman Melville some
competition.
To this aspiring writer, that typewriter was
my connection to the world. It could capture my thinking and mechanically
translate it to black and white words.
For years that typewriter was a prized
possession. Thousands of sheets of
white paper passed beneath that black roller. I don’t know what happened
to the old typewriter. It disappeared during my college and early marriage
days. I wish it would reappear again in a box long stashed away, but that is
doubtful.
So now, instead of the clickity-clack of
typewriter keys, I sit in front of a computer screen and watch the word
processor do its amazing magic. With a few strokes of the keyboard and some
handwork with the mouse, sentences are written or deleted. Whole paragraphs
wrap around graphics and photographs. Finally everything goes to the laser
printer which spits out esthetically perfect documents.
Recently a young man announced his sincere
desire to become a great writer. When asked to define "great" he
said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that
people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them
scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!"
He now writes error messages for Microsoft.
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