My birthday was a couple weeks ago; it was a big one, a “decade” birthday. My family never made a big deal over the birthday of anyone old enough to shave. This is as it should be.
So when I got only one present, I was in no way disappointed, particularly since it’s quite possibly the coolest gift I’ve ever received. I’m writing on it now.
Unlike my old laptop, it runs forever on a single charge. It completely filters out junk emails, instant messages, annoying Facebook memes and even bothersome text notifications. All of these things used to slow down my productivity, but not any more.
Also, the resolution is as close to real life as you can get. I don’t know how many pixels-per-inch there are in real life, but whatever that number is, my new machine has got ‘em.
Even better, it comes with a built-in printer that is 100 percent compatible with all the software the machine runs. Speaking of which, there’s no software to install and nothing to set up. Boot-up time is zero seconds; it’s ready to go right out of the box and even a novice user can figure out its entire feature set in less than a minute without cracking the manual.
I know, I know, you’re wondering where you can find one of these miracle machines for yourself, right? Well, that’s the downside, they’re rarer than hen’s teeth and often prohibitively expensive. My sweetie, Lori, tracked mine down at an antique store.
See, it was manufactured in 1923 in New York City by the Underwood Typewriter Company. For all its amazing features, it — like me — is old. But I like that.
It means there’s at least a chance I’m currently writing this column on the same machine used by F. Scott Fitzgerald to hammer out “The Great Gatsby.” Probably not, but there’s a chance and that’s more than you can say about my MacBook.
Or maybe Hemingway used it to write “A Farewell to Arms” while sitting in the Spanish sun and drinking absinthe on some cheap hotel terraza. Did Papa flesh out the fictional lives of Jake Barnes and Lady Bret Ashley on my Underwood #5? Maybe, maybe.
It’s even possible I’m writing on the very same Underwood #5 my mother purchased for me at a yard sale for my 11th birthday, not long after I informed her of my intent to be a famous writer. (I’m still working on the “famous” part; there are those, in fact, who would argue I’m still working on the “writer” part.)
I would love for this to be the typewriter from my childhood; it certainly looks exactly the same. And I’m a huge fan of cosmic symmetry.
It’s impossible to know for sure. But regardless of its origin or history, I feel a real sense of “rightness” about writing on the thing. The clackety-clack of the mechanical keys, the pinging of the little bell reminding me to operate the carriage return (I was surprised how fast this habit came back!), the smell of machine oil and time, time, time.
My Underwood #5 is only a handful of years shy of 100, after all, and works as well as the day it left that New York factory. Built like a tank (and almost as attractive) it was crafted by the hands of people that cried the day Lincoln was shot, read with open wonder the accounts of Orville and Wilbur’s miracle at Kittyhawk; people who were still maybe reeling over the sinking of the Titanic.
This old typewriter has seen things I can only imagine. And at 93, it’s still going strong. Somehow, this inspires me and gives me hope in a way no super-fast-quad-seven processor or flashy bit of software out of Silicon Valley ever will.
Sure, the auto-correct feature doesn’t work worth a damn. But it turns out you can purchase an accessory item known as “dictionary.”
What will they think of next?
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