Purdy Good

In the summer of 2004, just before moving from Santa Rosa to San Francisco for college, I embarked on a cross-country road trip with my pal, John Courage. Both a fan and purveyor of country music, he wanted to visit Branson, MO, one of the country music capitals in the U.S.

Is it possible for there to be more than one capital? Wouldn’t Nashville be THE country music capital, with Branson taking the honors of Country-Themed capital of the country?

We loaded into his Volvo station wagon, dubbed Tommy the Tank, and hit the road. Poor Tommy began to sputter the very first afternoon and we got stuck in Ceres, CA. A garage identified the problem as a leaky transmission, topped us off, and sent us on our way. Troubles persisted further south in Needles, CA, but at the suggestion of a kindly diner manager, we threw some Lucas into the transmission which seemed to keep the leak abated. We reasoned that Branson might be pushing it, so we adjusted our travel plans to get as far as Albuquerque, NM, where John’s aunt and uncle lived, and then plot a new route.

While in New Mexico, I bought a used electric typewriter at a Goodwill. I had recently watched the Bob Dylan Don’t Look Back documentary, and had seen Dylan typing out poems and song lyrics, and became enamored with the idea of getting a typewriter of my own. The brand and model escape, but I remember that it was in rough shape, the paper loaded crookedly, and some of the keys misfired, but I spent a lot of time the remainder of that trip in motel rooms writing song lyrics and poems and smoking too many cigarettes.

The typewriter stayed with me for a couple years after the trip (we made it as far east as Austin), but somewhere along the way, I left it behind, either on one of my subsequent San Francisco moves or a much later move to and then away from Portland.

I’ve missed having a typewriter since then, and periodically entertained fancies of acquiring another, especially during periods when I have had enough self-awareness to recognize a certain addiction to the distraction of screens. It was after a chance viewing of the documentary California Typewriter, I began earnestly seeking out a manual typewriter. I spent a few days hunting on eBay, and landed on a 1965 Smith Corona Galaxie II in decent shape.

Since then, we (the whole family) has been enjoying the typewriter around the home. There’s something uniquely satisfying about rolling in the sheets of paper, setting the carriage, and punching away. I have begun using it for drafting fiction, but so far most of what I’ve produced are letters to friends and family and small cards for my wife. In the aforementioned documentary, Tom Hanks spoke of the impact a typed note has versus an email. An email gets a glance and then a delete. A typed note gets saved and appreciated.

Between fountain pens and notebooks and the new-to-me Smith Corona, it feels nice to use tools that force me to slow down, and get me off screens (I’m aware of the irony of using a screen to type this post). Be well, take care, and thanks kindly for reading.

-Purdy