Thursday, March 19, 2009

Clickety-clack

The thing about the Goodwill is you never knew how desperately you needed something until you spot it for dirt cheap in a menagerie of trash and treasures. We four went looking for tricycles this afternoon and ended up with this adorable Remington Personal-Riter circa 1967-69. And for $4.99, we couldn't afford not to have it.

When you pound the letters (and you do have to play them like piano keys) it makes a fabulous click-clack, tap-a-tap sound. Then when you reach the end of a line: Ziiip...Tap, tap, tap-a-tap. N is most fond of how it feels when you manually press your words onto a clean sheet of paper.

Tonight, after Thai food and no luck locating a tiny tricycle anywhere, we came home with our new typewriter and took turns carefully banging out sentences (there's no backspace key to erase mistakes). We practiced saying things like:

"This just in..."

Click-clack, clackety-clack, clack clack.

Then with a dramatic flourish to rip the paper from the roller: "Copy boy! Take it to the editor. It's ready to print."

I can't wait to get started on a mystery novel in which every family member contributes a few sentences as we go along. Here's how I'm thinking we should start it:

"It was a dark and stormy night. The only sound that could be heard over the howling wind was the click-clack, clackety-clack of the typewriter..."


3 comments:

  1. This is a fun and more whimsical entry. I think I have a similar model in the attic, in a zippered case even. And of course I have the very old L.C. Smith Secretarial model I found in an antique store in Wisconsin...

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  2. This was fun to read. I had a typewriter for years...always loved the sound of punching the letters.

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  3. It's Snoopy's signature blue typewriter! Of *course* it's awesome ;) We've been looking for a mini one as a wedding-cake topper but alas, no dice.

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