I don’t know whether I find this funny, depressing, or horrifying. I came across this old typewriter last weekend in the Hastings Building during the historic buildings tour in Port Townsend. It looks just like the machine on which I learned to type. In those days we learned to type, not “keyboard.” I was in junior high school. The teacher walked up and down between rows of desks. Our hands were on “home row” and as she walked, she clapped and rhythmically called out, “A, S, D, F, G, H, J, K, SEMICOLON.”
As I learned to type, an electric typewriter was a fancy dream. The progression since then has been dizzying. Today I slip a Kindle Fire in my purse that easily has more power than my first half dozen computers combined. Yet when I look at that Smith Corona above I can still hear the slapping hands and “A, S, D, F, G, H, J, K, SEMICOLON.”