A la Recherche du Temps Perdu

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These machines are still used in funeral homes, but mine is for looks only.
These machines are still used in funeral homes, but mine is for looks only.

It’s musty, looks urine-stained, smells of an old biddy’s storage attic, but it’s a connection to my past — of sorts — just like a linotype machine, which I don’t own or display in my house as I do this blast from the past.

The urine-looking stains on my SmithCorona (the machine doesn’t use a space in its spelling, so I guess I won’t either) are hopefully just atmospheric corrosion, but one never knows when one purchases a half-century-old (or more) portable typewriter for 25 bones on eBay.

The carrying case for the portable was so smelly that I tossed it immediately upon receipt, and I’ve been spraying the typewriter itself with Simple Green and anything else I can think of ever since, in hopes of eradicating the Old Biddy kept-things-too-long smell.

The typewriter sits as an ornament in my upstairs study (read: spare bedroom) between a book on the history of Mickey Mouse and a radio/CD player. Talk about three relics — four if you count me.

As for linotypes, yes, my first job was as a scab reporter for the old Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, and the seven-edition-a-day rag was composed on a linotype and then assembled into pages by hand.

Ah, the good old days. I made $92 a week, but it was enough to buy my first house. Today, I doubt I could even feed myself and my three dogs on that.

(Meanwhile, for the real deal on used typewriters, check out My Typewriter. Also, please note that typewriters are still used in funeral homes because many states require typed death certificates. I hope that’s not an omen emanating from my recent purchase.) ♦

Categories: Grammar Notes

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