Why Should I love this typewriter? Because it’s mysterious. Because I know it well. Because it was just randomly sitting in a corner in the Palacio de la Artesania in Havana, Cuba. Upon seeing it, my mind immediately jumped to Hemingway, but this wasn’t a Hemingway tour. We were here for rum and cigars. And besides, Hemingway’s typewriter must have been at his old house, Finca Vigía. It didn’t matter. I don’t even know what his typewriter looked like.
It didn’t matter because just seeing the old typewriter conjured up images of Hemingway. A drink in one hand and a cigar in another. But this typewriter also conjured up another image for me. Me, as a child. I used to own a similar typewriter. It was given as a gift to me by a friend of my parents. He worked in a paper shop and would ensure that we were kept in plenty of “reject” or over-run paper. Then one day, he surprised me with a typewriter similar to this and a little metal typing table. I think they upgraded their office and he grabbed this before it went into the garbage.
I loved those old round keys, even if I had to press each one down really hard. My fingers were black from putting the cloth ink ribbon into place. And from having to pry out a key that would get stuck. Sadly, it was usually the letter e.
What do you see when you see this dusty, old typewriter?
An alternative universe.
I see the middle. Between handwritten and a computer keyboard, typewriters were an advancement on the past, and a stepping stone towards the future. Nostalgic, maybe. I never worked on an old typewriter, preferring the fluency of a keyboard, but like many things it deserves respect for the role it played in making writing and communication just that much easier.
I prefer keyboards too, but it wasn’t a choice when I was young. Electric typewriters were expensive so to snag my own manual typewriter was cause for a celebration!
absolutely!
I love this. Hemingway and I have never been one to see eye to eye. When look at an old typewriter I see my muse, standing somewhere in the late 19th century. They are creative but repressed in a time of little opportunity and great yet not so great expectations. <3
I feel the same as you about Hemingway. But there is something about being in Cuba and seeing a typewriter like this just sitting in a corner….It just conjures up ghosts.
Yes I just confess, the very image of Hemingway can be quite the inspiration…I might have written a poem inspired by his image before I decided I was not a fan of his work.
I see reporters hunched over hundreds of these in a newsroom, needing to be accurate since there was no correction tape, or autocorrect. Yikes! I’d never have made it as a writer back then. And I do remember the old manual typewriters similar to this one. I had one I took to college with me and finally put it in a yard sale years later. As for cigars, that is something to celebrate! So cool you went to Cuba, Jennifer.
I can see those reporters too. Mostly, I hear the keys and the sound of the return.
A young intern in our office about a decade plus ago saw a typewriter and asked, “What is this?”
Oh! That’s both funny and sad.
I think of my uncle, who still uses a typewriter!
One of my good friends has a typewriter like this in her house for decoration. Love it!
Think of all the stories that typewriter saw.!
I see my youth too, I also had a typewriter, and then an electronic word processor – I loved both of them. I would write and write, make little booklets. I would love to have that creativity again, I struggle to find it now 🙁
I loved the energy I had back then. I could do more things and used to have several projects going at once.
It feels like energy gets left behind on things like these old typewriters more than it does on a computer keyboard, yeah? Like I get this weird headbuzz when I walk into antique shops and something about old typewriters evokes this feeling very strongly, whereas some old keyboard or monitor does nothing of the sort. You leave pieces of yourself on these instruments when you use them.
Back in the day, a typewriter like that was kept for years and possibly handed down to someone. Keyboards crap out after a year or two. There’s no time to create that energetic bond.
I think about the time my daughter visited our local historical society on a school field trip. When I asked her what she saw, she told me a typewriter! I felt OLD!!!
Oh. That hurts!