This year July 4th fell on a Tuesday, so the office was closed today, Monday. Most people look forward to the extra holiday time off, but I am accustomed to a structured schedule during the week. My days are consumed mostly with work and the occasional social event, so the open-ended time leaves me feeling a bit adrift. Like other mornings, it began with the newspapers, coffee, and a few pages from one of the many books I am reading. Predictably there were a few emails from old friends who, like me, were also unoccupied, and looking for some casual conversation. But by then I was already onto a cleaning project instead: my vintage 1940s Smith Corona typewriter — a gift from my kids on Father’s Day, purchased “fresh” from someone’s attic in Maine through Ebay. Though it had a new ribbon, the machine was otherwise in need of a thorough Lenny cleaning. With tools in hand, including several brushes, mineral oil, a clean rag and cotton Q-tips, I started the process slowly. The case was musty from years of storage and disuse. I ran my finger across it and picked up a film of brown dust. I did not want to ruin the patina on the metal exterior or be too aggressive with the inner workings as I could mess up something that has been working for the past 70 years. I cleaned the keys just enough so they didn’t stick. I can only imagine the essays and perhaps novels written on this old Smith Corona. Like a later-model Smith Corona purchased during my high school days in 1955, I am certain it was used by a student in the 1940s.
This Corona is going to camp to replace the old Hermes 1940s vintage typewriter that has been my accomplice in writing since 2017, when I started visiting camp during the summer months and wrote letters and journal entries, then my weekly column. Unfortunately, the tab button broke during my last stay at camp. My kids found me a replacement for it instead of lugging the heavy machine back to New York for a visit to the typewriter doctor. Eventually I will get it fixed.
I’ve had a long-term fascination with typewriters, from the first one I received in the 1950s to my current collection–an Olympia, two Smith Coronas and an Hermes. I am motivated to write when I am seated in front of one of these machines. The touch of the keys, the sharp clicks of the letter bars striking the rubber barrel (unlike the hushed, smoothed-over tapping sound of a laptop keyboard) and then rolling out a finished column—that is satisfaction. Sometimes I wear an old hat while I am typing. It is the way I imagine writers of the past worked when they were at a keyboard.
Now that I have cleaned my new typewriter, I am content to have accomplished something that was important to me. Lunch will be ready soon. If the rain stops, maybe Patti and I can bat a few tennis balls, or even better, I will wash the old Jag and ready it for a ride to the beach.
