What’s old is new again
With three kids in our brood, I am accustomed to getting a lot of requests for things: school and hobby supplies, entertainment, clothing, foods and stuffies. But when my eldest child told me he wanted a typewriter, I thought he must be joking. That clickity clackity machine that I last used in 1982? What could possibly be the appeal?
Whatever the shortcomings, he liked the idea of writing on a device without the distractions of social media and all the other temptations when using his computer. I understood his reasons, but I still had to overcome my own prejudices.
Typewriters and I have a complicated history. Around 7th grade, all the students at my school took a typing class where we learned the proper way to type on a typewriter. Naturally, we learned correct hand placement, how to address envelopes and write formal letters. Despite the fascinating curriculum, I counted the minutes until class ended.
I did learn my way around an IBM Selectric. Unfortunately, I became more intimately familiar with that model when I accepted a summer job working for a typewriter technician who contracted with all the schools to clean and service hundreds of classroom typewriters. A school is never more profoundly depressing than in the heat of summer, devoid of staff and students, when the air is stale and there is nothing to fill the silence except the sound of two people cleaning typewriters. So, when my child assured me of the sincerity of his request, I still laughed like a loon.
Typewriters are having a bit of a moment in the cultural zeitgeist—an amalgam of nostalgia, piqued interest from Tom Hanks’ book, Uncommon Type: Some Stories, and the desire of a younger generation to unplug from their devices. Driving down 228th Avenue at the end of a school day, it is not hard to understand the desire. Nearly every high school student leaving Skyline, Eastside Catholic, or Eastlake high school has their head bent over a phone, at times barely looking up to cross the street. Even when teenagers hang out together, they often spend more time on their phones than actually interacting with each other.
So when my son showed me the listing on OfferUp for a beautiful 1960s olive green Olivetti typewriter, I relented and agreed to meet the seller, Kelye Kneeland, who turned out to be one of the most interesting persons I have ever met. A former schoolteacher, she is an avid collector of typewriters, an advocate for their use, and an accomplished portrait artist who creates her masterpieces using typewriters. She employs the subtle use of shading and letter choice to create likenesses of William Shakespeare, Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein and Frida Kahlo.
Kelye gave me one precious piece of advice before I drove off with the Olivetti—if it ever needs servicing, take it to Paul Lundy at the Bremerton Typewriter Company.
Sure enough, once my child started banging away on the typewriter, he encountered a problem—the ribbon would not properly advance. Thus, on a beautiful July day, we boarded a ferry to Bremerton.
When we walked into the Bremerton Typewriter Company, Paul greeted us with a smile. He looked at the typewriter case like a child anticipating the opening of a Christmas present. As he reverently opened it, he immediately started poking around the old Olivetti with my son while I walked among the rows of vintage machines for sale.
There are dozens of restored typewriters in the shop, all painstakingly revitalized by Paul and his wife, Lisa. Many of the manual machines are over 100 years old, but some are more modern electric versions. Each is a marvel of engineering and craftsmanship. I was invited to slip a sheet of paper into any typewriter to try out. Meanwhile, Paul isolated the problem with the Olivetti—one loose screw. He moved on from fixing the typewriter to instructing my son on some simple cleaning and maintenance lessons. We left with a working, cleaner typewriter, and he wouldn’t even charge us for his time.
Shortly after the trip, our eldest decided he needed an electric typewriter that would be easier on his wrists instead of the manual Olivetti, and once again I turned to OfferUp. This time for an Olympia Electric X-L12 that Kelye Kneeland was also selling. Who else would I buy a typewriter from?
Many evenings, I can hear the clickity clack of a letter or a story being hammered out from behind my son’s closed door. Now I just need to find a home for our recently serviced Olivetti. I am sure there is more than one teenager out there that could use the creative freedom from their online distractions.
Christopher Lay is a part-time writer and photographer and a full-time parent based in Sammamish. When not shepherding his kids around, he enjoys visiting the region’s finer coffee shops or getting his hands dirty in the yard. His photography can be viewed at https://chrislay.smugmug.com.
