The Thumpa-Thump my Heart Makes over the Clickety-Clack

I don't know about you, but I think estate sales are a little creepy. There's something so sad and forlorn about a house that's no longer occupied, and just the bare bones of a lifetime are left, piled up on tables and marked with orange price tags. Whenever I'm at one, I can't help but wonder what my estate sale would be like. Would people be haggling over the price of my chipped dishes? How much would they pay for my "If I Were a Rich Man" music box, with Reb Tevye's jaunty arm raised mid-snap? Would they notice that poor Tevye's wrist had been cracked years ago, and meticulously re-glued?

At such a sale this week, I wasn't seeing much that interested me. I passed by the collection of porcelain faced dolls and shot glasses from touristy American cities. But in the basement, I saw something that made by heart go thumpa-thump:

A Royal typewriter.

My husband had to call my name a couple times before I came out of my trance. It was just like the typewriter my father used, and memories began flooding back. Something so satisfying about that fat clack clack clack that signified that Dad was working, or typing up a letter. And the memory of him taking me on his knee to show me how to give each key a sharp attack, not too hard to make an imprint into the paper, but not too soft so that the ink wouldn't transfer from the ribbon. I remember how he showed me how to replace the ribbon, to gently thread it through the inner workings of the magical machine, and your words would come out thick and black and meaningful. And when you ran out of room, but had just a few more letters, there was that lovely margin release button, that extended your line just a few more spaces.

I wonder if we all have that thing, that special memory or experience that we can go back to and revisit from time to time. And when we take it off the dusty shelf of our memory, we can say, "Oh, so that's why ..." Because without realizing it, I guess a typewriter is that thing I revisit from time to time. Somewhere early on I began my love affair with words, and the idea of sharing words with others. When I think of my Dad, who is a retired minister, I often couple my early memories of him with the sound of a clacking typewriter and the ding at the end of each line. I loved the words that he wrote, and the way he used his words to share good news and to make people feel happy and hopeful again.

Before him, my grandfather sat at his old black typewriter. He had written so many words that the "a" key had fallen off, rendered useless. The letters he would write us would be missing the a's, or else he would write them in by hand.

My first typewriter was a cute little blue one that came in its own carrying case. I loved being able to carry it around, and I'd type up stories and lists and letters. It was so modern and lightweight compared to my Dad's Royal, and I loved it because it was mine. I was probably in grade school, and it seemed like such a grown-up thing to own. Later on I bought myself an electric typewriter, but I never loved it the way I loved my little blue one.

I would never go back to using a typewriter now—I love my Macbook almost as much as my own children—but I'm so glad I have the memory of it. My kids don't even know what a typewriter is. It is a foreign concept to them, just like a Victrola is to me. I will tell them about my typewriter, but they will never love it as much as I do. They won't get that feeling in the pit of their stomach when they see an old typewriter sitting in someone's dusty basement.

But I hope for their sake, that they have that something that evokes happy memories. That something that sort of serves as a building block for who they are. For me, it is a typewriter. What is it for you?