The Underwood #5 man praises old technology
By BILL DUNCAN
The View From Here
Like in probably every household in America, the mail includes dozens of catalogs. Usually, they are addressed to the family comptroller, my wife. For those interested in a scientific study, that is because she orders from catalogs. I don’t.
I do like to thumb through the catalogs just to see what ingenious things — items no one really needs — are being peddled today through mail order. I was startled while thumbing my way through the latest Dr. Leonard’s healthcare catalog when on page 25 there was a listing for a brand new manual typewriter for $79.99 along with two replacement ribbons for $4.99.
The description was that of a portable typewriter. In my day that was the laptop we reporters took on extended assignments away from the office. My portable typewriter relic is stored in a closet.
My favorite manual typewriter, however, is not relegated to the dark reaches of a closet. It is prominently displayed in a guest bedroom, neatly covered with oil cloth, the words "Underwood" plainly printed on its exterior. Under that oil cloth protector is my prize Underwood #5, in my opinion the best typewriter that was ever made. On another closet shelf there is an Underwood electric, a goosey monstrosity I used for my writing before I was poisoned by the word processor.
Life has never been the same, but it appears one must sleep with the devil in this fast moving world of technology. Admittedly, it has eliminated a nuisance from long ago — carbon paper. I still have a small ditty I clipped from Writer’s Digest in the 1970s that says: "Finished the manuscript. Looks good, except I put the carbon paper in upside down."
It also has eliminated the dirty job of changing the ribbon, although changing toner cassettes sometimes is just as dirty. I would imagine that when Christopher Latham Sholes, a mechanical engineer first patented the manual typewriter in 1868 and sold the idea to Remington Arms Co. in 1873, the people trying to learn the QWERTY keyboard thought they had surrendered to the devil.
Evidence of this was that the typewriter was not an overnight success, yet in time it would become an indispensable device for the modern office.
The first manuscript ever written on a typewriter and submitted to a publisher was the work of Mark Twain.
The word processor — a computerized means of typing — has all but eliminated the old manual typewriter and its 20th century marvel counterpart, the electric typewriter. Even so, the word processor, didn’t gain immediate approval. I am still withholding my approval having just lost this column to the depths of cyberspace due to a power surge that happened before I gave it the command to save. My frustration turned the air blue with words unfit for a family newspaper.
William F. Buckley, Jr. in his memoir "Miles Gone By," has an anecdote about a surprise gift that novelist Tom Wolfe’s wife gave him on an anniversary — a complete $10,000 computer set up to assist his writing. It sat idle, according to Buckley, for more than a year while Wolfe continued to pound out his manuscripts on an old Underwood.
Hank Ketcham once drew a Dennis the Menace cartoon with Mr. Wilson typing on an old manual typewriter while Dennis looked on. The caption had Dennis asking: "Where do you turn it on?"
That’s the beauty of it Dennis. You can still write on a non-electric manual despite power surges and the copy is automatically saved, even if you put the carbon paper in upside down.
Would I go back to the days when I had to manually throw the carriage?
In a New York minute.
Why do you think I have saved my old Underwood #5?
The rest of you may be in the dark, but like the scribes of old, I will still be able to write by candlelight. Getting it published is another matter entirely.
(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470)
March 14th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
After being bumped off line a couple of times while trying to write long emails on my yahoo email account, I learned to write everything on my aol email and then copy and paste it to whereever I want it or just send it to my yahoo email. You can continue to write email off-line on most servers if you get interrupted. Of course, a power failure would short curcuit even this stategery.