Griffin O’Connor
Blog Post
My
Typewriter
So
the other day I found myself thinking and reminiscing about different things,
and suddenly I remembered something, and it struck me as funny that I hadn’t
thought about it since I had been home. Do you ever, in the midst of
daydreaming, suddenly remember some aspect of your life that you just haven’t
ever thought back to? I don’t mean things like “Oh no, I forgot to feed the dog
this morning”, or “I just remembered that I have a dentist’s appointment on
Tuesday”, but something more like “Hey, I didn’t I used to have a favorite
stuffed animal?” or “Wait a minute, don’t I own a bicycle?” Normally, you won’t
really think too much of the fact that this has managed to slip your mind for a
few years because it will make sense that you forgot about it. Maybe, instead
of a favorite stuffed animal, it was just another toy, and when you realize that
you owned it as a kid, it won’t be surprising that you haven’t thought about it
in 5 years because you rarely ever thought about when you were a kid. But every
now and then, you remember something that used to be important or prominent to
you a while ago, but until just a moment ago had disappeared from your
thoughts. One of several times that this has happened to me was a couple of
years ago, when I suddenly recalled that about 3-4 years ago I spent at least 3
months taking tennis lessons. The fact that this happened had completely slipped
my mind. I just never really played or even thought about tennis after that,
and so my mind never really revisited this. This is sort of what happened to me
the other day when I was thinking about different things, when the thought just
popped into my head that I own a typewriter! After this sudden, yet seemingly
obvious realization, I was overcome with a feeling of nostalgia and excitement.
It is one of my most prized possessions, but the thrill I felt is probably what
it will feel like when I get home and see my dog again for the first time in 3
months, the feeling of seeing something familiar that is near and dear to your
heart after being apart from it for a period of time. The entire time I have
been here I haven’t thought for a second about it because it never was really
relevant to any of my other thoughts at the time. If I were at home, I would
see it every day and obsess over it and how beautiful I think it is. Finally I
am getting to the point, which is to tell you the story of how I obtained this
typewriter and why I love talking about it.
It
was the summer before last, and my dad had taken us on a road trip around the
upper east coast. We were finally going back home, after spending our last day
in Massachusetts, when I saw a local antique store in the town we had stopped
in. I asked my dad if we could go in, since that had been one of the things I
had wanted to do on this trip, and he said that we could stop in for a few
minutes. Inside, the shop was rather small, but I quick look around told me
that this was still a top-notch antique store, with a wide menagerie of
interesting things. I began looking around at the different items, when I saw
it. A beautiful typewriter, sitting on a table. I walked over, practically
drooling over the keys. It was a wonderful machine, relatively small, compared
to the other typewriters that would have been around in it’s time, but yet it
still had lots of charm. I tested the keys, and they all worked perfectly. I hope that I can get something this nice
when I’m older and have more money, I thought. Then, while I was admiring
it, I noticed a little yellow circle on the corner of the case.
“$20”
I was dumbstruck. That
couldn’t be the price! That was way too low for something that old! That was
crazy! That was… in my budget. In a
second I was up at the cash register, asking the man there if that price was
correct. He walked over to the table and looked at it. Then he stood back,
thought for a moment, and then said “Yeah, I guess.”
I
showed my dad and he was impressed by my find. I took it up to the register and
paid for it, smiling the whole time. We put it in a box brought it back to the
car. The entire ride back i was ecstatic, only thinking about how I had just
gotten something so perfect for such a great price.
When
we got home, my dad and I did a little research, and found out a little bit
about it. It was made in 1913, and it is so small because it was essentially
the first laptop computer, being taken around places by reporters and the like.
I’m not sure exactly how much it is worth, as there is a wide range of
different prices that this model has gone for, but I can tell you this much:
for $20, it was a steal.
