“I think getting a card that had been through a typewriter would be pretty cool.” Paul Nelson
Typing poetry straight out of my mind
to the card on this Remington noiseless
model seven is no easy task.
From a flea market to my daughter to me.
I don’t remember by mother’s underwood
being so stiff and LOUD and slow. So
slow. I typed 36 words a minute on that
one. I type 80 words on my computer. Lucky
to type 3 words a minute here. I took typing
in high school. Do not
remember 1 day in class. Typed papers for
Seydou and for newsletters and after the ’67
Detroit, typed on an electric. At the
library typed index cards on a selectric, the
ball going round and across fast and smoth.
smooth, two oos. not
like this soundless/noiseless/LOUD Remington
noiseless model seven. Let us not even consid
corrections. er.
There have been so many typewriters in my life. My mother’s portable Olivetti – how many school assignments were typed on it? Doing typing lessons at school – I do remember them and resenting them. The various typewriters I worked with at the ABC from manual to electric and then to computers…mad stuff. Never noiseless. I used to do 65 wpm – not sure how many now. My paper used to be held together with liquid paper sometimes 😉
This typewriter was the loudest typewriter I ever used. Clunk, clunk, clunk. Ah yes, liquid paper 🙂
No, there is no needs for corrections – the perfect Sepia Saturday post!
And I almost didn’t think of it.
I got a typewriter for my high school graduation present; it had a two-toned ribbon — black and white — and the white one was a substitute for liquid paper. Boy, those things were hard to use — remember the wrist action?
High marks for you! Top of the Class!
I also played at poetry during the last era of typewriters. Mine was a Bulgaria portable that I bought in London and wrote hundreds of epic odes. When it came back to America it refused to type anymore. Now I have to scan the old typewritten pages so they can be translated into computer files. Not as romantic.
I typed on an electric typewriter at work, but used a small manual portable at home that was so lightweight, when I ‘threw’ the carriage the silly thing leaped halfway across the table! And I think I mentioned once a while back in another Sepia post that my high school typing teacher used to put on a record to keep us typing in an even rhythm, then clear off her desk & dance on top of it to the music. It was quite the sight.
You had to have strong fingers to type on those old manual typewriters.
I remember my first typewriter, a Remington Selectric in bright red and it had the correcting ribbon Deb Gould mentioned. What a pain in the neck that was! Our typing teacher in high school, Sister Capistran, was a martinet. I will never forget her!
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I still have my mother’s Remington. I learned to type on it and I remember having so much trouble pushing the keys down. I couldn’t get the strike just hard enough. And I recall my fingers slipping between the keys and cutting a little finger quite badly. My folks bought me a portable Olivette that typed in italic. The keys were easier to hit, but I’m not sure why it was made to type only italic.
Your poem brought back memories of the stages of typewriters I went through.