Going By the Manual

 

Is this a time machine or what? Know what it is? It's a 1920s Remington manual typewriter, completely restored to its original form and function, thanks to the caring hands of the Mr. Wizard's Electronics company in Austin, Texas. Here's how the typewriter ended up in my hands. 

My grandfather Curtis Morris was a lobbyist for the natural gas industry. His assignments took him from Longview, Texas, to Austin, where he lived at The Driskill Hotel when visiting the Capitol nearby. Then it was on to Washington, D.C. during the Truman administration. We have handwritten letters from him to my grandmother, Daisy, describing his need for a typewriter to improve the flow of correspondences with politicians of the day. His office sent him the one you see here, so it was a used model even when he got it.

A sidebar here: One of my favorite stories from the early days was that Curtis taught school at San Marcos State Teachers College. At the school was a tall young man who did the janitorial work. His name was Lyndon Johnson. "After that, Curtis always said, 'You better be nice to the boy who sweeps out. He may grow up to be president,'" Daisy told us.

Back on topic: We also have many of the typed letters that followed after he got the typewriter. There's history here that he played a role in, but if I get into the Tidelands controversy and Texas' right to offshore lands as properties of Texas, not the U.S. government, your eyes may glass over. It's enough to say that he really did need a typewriter, and this is the one he had. 

Using this typewriter, my grandfather described his impressions of the hippie demonstrations going on outside their apartment windows on Connecticut Avenue, the reaction to Kennedy's assassination, as well as Martin Luther King's and the rioting that followed. "We were under martial law," Daisy remembers. "There were Jeeps with soldiers and pointed guns. I don't ever want to do that again."

After Daisy departed this earth at the age of 103, I found the manual on a shelf in her office. I was immediately attracted to the typewriter's size - a real portable, no cords or electronics - a yellowish look of the keys that I imagine Hemingway would have poured over in similar fashion, very 1920s. A true time machine.

I thought I could just dust it off and start writing, but it was more complicated than that. I didn't even know how to engage the keys; there's a level that lifts them up to begin their work. I found Mr. Wizard's while surfing the Net for anyone who would know how to handle technology of this age, and I was not disappointed. The company had special parts cut and made so the rollers would work, and all kinds of inner things I didn't even understand. I just knew I wanted to write with it.

Intriguingly, the company tells me that the typewriter fascinated some 20-somethings who had never seen this kind of machine before. They marveled at the sound the keys made, the ding of the bell at the end of the line, everything about it was a mystery to them. In no way is this the kind of vehicle on which you can drill your way to 20 pages an hour. It's slow going, because the keys can bunch up if you hit them too fast. It takes patience and willingness to peck each letter, but it feels worth it. Something about slowing down forces you to think through every word, discarding the extraneous as you go.

There's something about the recycling factor, too. Why would I toss this machine in the landfill when for less than $200, I can relive what it was like to be a Man of Letters in Washington as history unfolded?

Plenty of recipes ended up being typed on this machine, too. I feel the need to clack, so I'll exit here and move over there to the manual, with keys made before the invention of the exclamation mark!