We Need More Field Trips, a Prelude

I had the chance to get away from the office yesterday and help chaperone my son's high school biology class to Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, just a little south of San Francisco. Despite the mild threats of rain that never came through, we had a fine day out, sliding around on the rocks, checking out various sea critters exposed at the low tide, and likely sending a poor red octopus into therapy by the collective and excited shouting of about 50 boys all pointing and bellowing "OCTOPUS!"

I tried my hand at a little journaling to pass the time on the rides down and back and may transcribe the notes here soon. A bouncing bus full of chattering teenagers may not be the ideal environment to Think Deep Thoughts, but now I have a new appreciation for the kinds of life that hangs along our coast, and how they've adapted to the battering tides.

I also have a deeper appreciation for high school teachers and the battering they get each day at work. As wonderful as it was to get out from the desk and into the fresh air, there's something to be said for the quiet and relative calm of my day job. I imagine Mssrs. Adney and Polt are leaning back in their chairs now, noddling sagely. My salt-sprayed hat is off to you gentlemen. I have to admit that I got a little unhinged on the ride home, sitting on a too-small schoolbus seat, staring at the miles of brake lights between me and home.

I wouldn't have traded the day for anything, though. We need more field trips in our lives.

Forget-me-not at the home store

One of those pre-printed, antique-style home decor items. This appears to be nearly identical to this source, and perhaps it will become standard piece of clip art like this old Olympia that I've since seen on rubber stamps for sale at the craft store. Has anyone in the 'sphere started amassing a collection of old advertising art like this?

The assembly is certainly a fiction, since the text underneath the typewriter appears to be copy from a gardening catalog advertising Forget-me-nots.

Typespotting: Olympia International Arabic Electric

Apologies for the atrocious photo quality, but spotted this monster today -- an electric Olympia standard model (SG... something?) with an Arabic keyboard. Very neat! Even has the dual cloth- and carbon-ribbon system inside.

Yes, Ted, I did get the serial number, too. :-) Don't know the age or model, but if I had to guess, I'd say a 1970's electrified SG3, just based on the body style, the logo, and the paper-injector lever (cut out of the bottom photo.)

Nor-Cal Mini Type-In 2: Non-Electric Boogaloo

Cameron had the presence of mind to bring a real camera, whereas I was stuck with my cell phone and some notably low-res photos. Truly a celebration of low-tech on this fine day. Expect crisper photos from Cameron when he's able to get back to a computer and upload them.



Despite Cameron's apologies about minor paint scuffs and the nylon ribbon, I found the Corona really very nice to type with.  Playing "find the controls" was another highlight. The backspace key floats over near the right spool, and the margin release is actually a pair of levers on the carriage. Double line-spacing is activated by rotating a small metal shape on the left of the carriage near the ratchet -- that's the best way I can describe it. Neither of us could locate the control to disengage the feed rollers, if there is even such a thing on this machine.

Since I already have to look at my hands to type, playing "find the punctuation" was an added bonus to the typecast. As you can see from the type sample, the apostrophe hangs out about the "J" key, which explains my intermittent typos. The other gaffes are purely just my inability to type properly, as usual. I got a little faster by the end of the page, and didn't have to adjust myself mentally as much to remember which shift button to press. I appear to use my left hand almost exclusively for shifting, and unhelpfully, both left-hand keys are labeled "FIG."

Corona owners: are there nuts that fit atop the spools? They seem to want to pop off when the machine is being folded. The Erika that I owned had them, but these spool posts didn't look threaded to me. We don't know if these are the original spools or not, though Cameron has the booklet for this machine, so perhaps there's a helpful illustration in there. We didn't check.



We got a number of passers-by this time as before. The table where we were situated is located in the middle of a professional building complex, and is a shortcut for pedestrians looking for a little shade. We got the usual comments like "haven't heard that in a while" or "I haven't seen a Corona in years!" Just as we were packing up, a woman in her 70s(?) came up to me and actually thanked me: "So many memories -- thank you so much for doing this."

Yeah, that was a pretty amazing feeling.



Cameron decided to bring the Corona, since all his "problem child" machines are currently in a working state thanks to a fortunate combination of luck and judicious cleaning/random prodding. This type-in was purely about the bling, and that Royal is probably the nicest-looking machine I own. It also is the first one I bought once I found that fateful "Typewriter Brigade" post of Duffy's, way back when, and it's the machine that made the inaugural typecast on this blog just a touch over four years ago, almost to the day. And here I brought it along just because it was shiny. Coincidences abound today.

I couldn't remember at the time, but the Royal is a 1932 model, so these two machines are roughly ten years apart. The Corona is a sprightly 90, and the Royal is a handsome 80 years young.  More than once today did I make the tired joke about "I hope I look this good at 90!" That's ten years of technology advances in that photo, then, or put in modern terms, an iPhone 4S next to the original iPod.

Hey, Bay Area Typospherians! Maybe we can get together for a bigger 945xx zip code type-in. Say "hi" in the comments if you're interested.

Remarkable

My sweet ride for setup and cleanup of the track meet: turned out to be more reliable than my own car.





Unremarkable low-light cell-phone snap of Reggie, post-cleaning.



Typed on "Reggie," a late model Silver-Seiko (or is it Silver Reed?) built Royal Mercury.