I think I was a ninth grader when I took typing class. I can still remember the clicking of keys as a roomful of students typed specially prepared typing assignments. The room was filled with the sound of dinging bells a reminder from the student’s typewriter that it was time to return the carriage and start another line of typing.

Stress filled the typing room when the dreaded ‘timed typing’ test was administered. Stress was ever present because the number of words a student could type in a minute would help determine the report card grade. Once the bell sounded indicating the typing time had ended the mistakes in the newly typed text were counted and subtracted from the original word total.

It was a long time ago but if my memory serves me correctly the fastest time I ever reached was forty six words per minute. Not fast enough to get the keys smoking hot like a couple of my classmates that typed over a hundred words per minute. They were predicted to become successful secretaries someday pulling down big bucks for a law firm in some far off city.

I have always been thankful for that typing class as I still use those skills acquired in that noisy ‘clickity clack’ classroom to this day.

I acquired my first typewriter as my teaching career was getting underway. I’m not sure how I survived five years of college without a typewriter because most certainly some writing assignments must have required typed pages. I blame the piling up of too many years between my college years and now for that memory lapse. 🙂

The first couple years of my teaching career I was typewriter-less”. That meant when it came time for me to type up a test or lab activity I needed to use the typewriter in the school’s secretary’s office. That was especially irritating when I had finished writing the test in long hand, was ready to produce a typed version and it was twenty below zero, blowing snow with sidewalks knee deep in snowdrifts. Did I mention that I had to walk several blocks from my apartment to the school?

The school was very old as it was built in 1902. So it was a little spooky being in a creaky, old building in the middle of the night when the auger moving coal from the coal room to the very old furnace would kick in sending the floor into a spasm of vibrations. That was followed by me going into my own special spasms! 🙂

In 1970 thanks to the Russians launching their Sputnik satellite several years earlier the U.S. government invested large sums of money into improving science education in schools. Russia must not beat us in putting men into space and eventually traveling to the moon.

I have always considered that investment a blessing to me as it allowed me to go tuition free to the University of Oklahoma and earn my Masters of Natural Science.

And what does that have to do with me and my typewriter-less condition? I’m glad you asked. The first year of summer school I was paid mileage down and back to the University. When I returned to Wheaton after summer school that first year I had saved the $600 mileage payment and guess what was the first item that I purchased with that windfall? It was the coolest Olympia portable, manual typewriter!

The typewriter was housed in a sleek, black carrying case. It had the neatest shaped letters. Instead of being rounded the letters appeared square. I was proud because no other teacher had a typewriter with script like it. To this day there is probably some sixty year old ex- biology student and once star athlete who was teetering on becoming ineligible if he or she failed a biology test with square letters. Seeing those letters again would send them into an immediate depressive episode.

I used that typewriter for many years until and an elderly aunt passed away and left me a tiny inheritance that allowed me to upgrade to a sleek, portable electric typewriter with memory! That will be a topic for another blog. 🙂

Of course my new electric typewriter replaced the old portable, manual machine. For many years now the old portable has had its own special place on a shelf in our garage. The longer it sat there the more outdated it became until now it is considered a member of the “typewriter scrap heap” hall of fame. That is until a couple weeks ago as I was selling books at the Rosholt Thrashing Bee. Let me explain.

Wyatt came up to my table with his Mom to examine my traveling library. In our discussion I discovered Wyatt was going to be a sixth grader and he was a mechanical genius as far as I could tell. He showed me a picture of a 1941 International Pickup that he, by himself, had refurbished.

I mentioned to him how the day before I had attempted to change oil on my push lawnmower. I didn’t do what I’ve told my past students to always do before starting a project…..always read the directions! I didn’t and as a result I tipped the mower over incorrectly and plugged the air filter with oil. The mower would no longer start.

Wyatt was very understanding and told me how to fix the problem. In fact the next day he returned with foam that I could replace my oil soaked air filter with. I was beginning to admire this young man especially since genetically the word mechanic is nowhere to be found in any of my DNA! 🙂

But then Wyatt said something that really caught my attention. Besides being a mechanical sixth grade genius he also collects things as a hobby.

“Oh,” I asked, “what things do you collect?’

Wyatt’s reply shocked when he said he collects manual typewriters.

I immediately thought of my ‘hall of famer’ sitting on the shelf in our garage and I told him about it.

In a very business like fashion Wyatt replied, “Oh, you do? What would you have to have for it?”

Very quickly I replied, “You can have it for free!”

So we agreed on that price and I told him I would bring the typewriter to him the next day since he was coming back to the thrashing bee too.

He shared with me that my typewriter was his 50th typewriter in his collection and he was going to build a special display case for it. I was honored.

So some day if my writing career really picks up and I become world famous that old typewriter might be needed to become a part of my writing memorabilia. That 50th manual typewriter in his collection might become worth a lot of money.

That young man from Roslyn, South Dakota will not only be a genius mechanic but a rich, genius mechanic!

I hope it happens. For his sake of course. 🙂

Until next time.