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| 1957 Royal Quiet Deluxe |
I’m hypersensitive to it and catch it immediately. I notice what’s referred to as ‘rivers’ of double spaces rolling down the screen. I’ve gone out of my way to search/replace double spaces in emails I’m responding to that contain them, it bothers me that much. All because Robin Williams made me aware that typewriters spaced everything at the same distance while computers did not. For example, the space the word “did” took up on the typed page was as uniformly spaced as the word “ill”. The 8-letter word “hardwood” took up the same amount of space on the typewritten page as the word “Idlewild”. Everything was monospaced, wherein “i” and “l” took the same horizontal space as the “d” or “e”. Consider how a word search puzzle is spaced and always vertically and horizontally aligned. It’s like that. There is no dynamic adjustment of the space between letters on a typewriter. Proportional fonts, those used on computers, taking up only the necessary and consistent amount of space between each letter (known as “kerning”), came about with computers and desktop publishing. Prior to that, the only way you could visually indicate at break between sentences was to double space after a period. I learned to type on a typewriter, evolved to computers, read that game-changing book, and never looked back.
The typewriter I used in my youth, constantly, was a beige 1957 Royal Quiet Deluxe Typewriter that my parents had. It was my fathers’, I believe, housed in a hard shelled portable case with a ‘tweed’ style design to the exterior and a sturdy handle for lifting and carrying. The case opened up and backwards when set flat, in a manner that left the typewriter on the base, ready for use. It easily lifted out and locked back into place, too, for transportation.
My dad taught me how to type in the time tested manner of his day and era… by having me repeatedly type the sentence “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.”. (That and "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" were the only acceptable options at that time). That became ingrained and remains the habitual phrase I use to this day, even as recently as visiting an Apple Store and trying out an iPad Pro with a Keyboard cover. If I try out the experience of typing on any device, I type that sentence without even thinking about it.
I wrote my first resume on that wonderful old typewriter. I typed letters, homework assignments, cassette labels and yes I even made my own word-search puzzles on occasion too. I even painstakingly filled in paper forms on it, forms that could have been more easily handwritten, but I was just into the typing approach. It was small, modern enough to support red and black ink ribbons, and ding’d a high pitched bell when you got to within a few characters of the right edge of the page. It became a pavlovian response to complete the word in progress and slap the carriage return lever to the right. It used no electricity. It had no “autocorrect” whiteout option either. And nothing preventing a rapid series of freely flowing ideas from running off the bottom of the page and continuing onto the black rubber roller as the paper fell behind the device. Yes, that happened.
Like a handful of items, including my recently re-acquired dresser valet/caddy that I now use daily, again, and the previously recovered “1000 words” poster that I see daily too, that typewriter was something that defined my late teens. Beyond my having recently come across and failing to buy the exact model of a GE digital clock radio that woke me routinely throughout those same years, I am a Habitrail setup, an Onkyo turntable, and a ‘Hang in there, Baby” cat poster away from recreating the bedroom of my youth.
Ironically, just like that clock radio, I came across that classic typewriter about a year or so back, in a local thrift store, in what appeared to have been very good condition. I even wondered if it might be the actual specific one we once owned. As I did with that clock radio, I talked myself out of buying it with the excuse that it would just end up in my garage, unused and unseen sans for the very rare occasion when I might stumble across it while looking for an obscure tool or a place to store the box of seasonal decorations. It just seemed like it would be clutter.
Only, I kept thinking about it. I kept regretting not buying it. I realized more and more that it was another one of those iconic items that really do give me joy to simply see, touch, and occasionally use.
Maybe it’s about aging. Just like the wooden cat and dog, my grandfather’s lighter, my father’s Parker pen, and the actual camera that shot all the childhood photos I hold so dear, there’s something about having a physical time from the past trigger not just memories, but a conscious awareness and connection to the perspective of appreciating the experiences of the present moment, as well as the past. It puts things into a greater perspective. At least it does for me, when I take the time to be present and consider what’s before me today as something that might mean as much to me in another 20 years.
In the end, after getting the aforementioned camera from my mom earlier this week, the typewriter resurfaced in my mind. As did the regret of not having grabbed it from that San Jose thrift store. It wasn’t that long ago, and I wondered if it might eventually turn up again somewhere else, perhaps at another goodwill, eBay, or maybe even Craigslist. That lead me to a quick Craigslist search, which immediately surfaced the exact same model, color case and all, that I’d seen and not bought. There’s lots of typewriters out there, from many makes and models and years, including numerous variations of the Royal Quiet Deluxe. But this one was exactly what I passed up, exactly what I used as a kid, right down to the case.
I wrote the ad author. I explained my history, my passing it up, and wondered if this was that same unit. Although he didn’t get it from that thrift store it turned out he was a collector, had 14+ different typewriters, bought and had this maintained at the Los Altos Business Machine store, and oh, lived 1.1 miles away from me. Biting my lip, I lobbied a bit to negotiate the price down to a point I felt I could easily justify considering the condition, maintenance and easy of pickup. The next day I got to meet him, check out his unique collection, talk about the intricacies of the machines, era, and little oddities including the origin of the qwerty layout, and best of all, walk away with this treasured memory now within my possession.
I took it home. Set it on the table. Sat before it. Inserted a blank page, and typed...
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.
It felt, and feels, like getting back on a bike after decades in a car. Nostalgic, but familiar and like coming full circle.
I guess my next step after this is to go find that alarm clock. I’m still thinking over the Habitrail, too. Maybe, just maybe, there are hamsters in tubing on the horizon, too.