Jan. 22, 2002 - 17:07 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Clickety Clack

My Mom worked for the Western Union as a branch manager and worked once at a branch that had a training Simplex. They were somewhat like a Teletype but printed on tape which had to be glued to the message form instead of typing on a sheet directly. So, hanging around her office on Saturdays I became acquainted with the qwertyuiop of things and watching what went on I also began to wish to communicate.

In Junior High School about 1934 I took the formal typing course. L C Smith typewriters were the Buicks of typewriters I guess you might say and we were fortunate to have them to learn on.

Then when I went to work for the railroad I was introduced to the work horse machine with which much of the mundane business was done those days. The front offices and hoity toity businesses had the fancys, but I think the highest percentages of work were with the Old Black Open Frame Underwood typewriters. (In caps -- they deserved it). I watched the billing clerks, typing like mad all day and sometimes into the evening, their fingers blurs. The switch desk which gave me waybills and errands to do had an Underwood too, I an audience of one marveled at the proficiency of the switch clerk on the beast.

I came in out of the open as a clerk, doing a nonentitys work gradually going upstairs as a claims clerk and did a little work on an Underwood while there. I had no problem because I knew keyboard work.

Eventually I inherited the switch desk and that ugly black typewriter became mine - on my shift. I tried to make sparks fly from it and sometimes made a decent rate of speed, but not nealy as fast at the billing clerks did -- heck they worked a piecework sort of job on billing.

Many a letter I wrote on it, a few bits of doggerel too in the slack times which came few and far between, it was war time and railroads were under heavy workloads which included the necessary paper work. A car wouldn't be moved until there was a waybill typed for it and a switch order was typed and sent to the yard.

Our freight house ran on Underwoods and Comptometers which were manned by highly skilled women. They were faster calculators than the conventional adding machines.

It was a loyal steadfast tool that did what was asked of it. Seldom used for uptown fancy work but made things run for the most part while the fancy letters from the expensive typewriters slowly moved back and forth.

I think our agent had a fancy typewriter that he used occasionally. Our Underwoods though quick and dirty things, were all caps, no lower case at all and the operation of the freighthouse depended on the use of them. I formed a deep love for the machine which would do what I asked of without going off in a snit and mechanical influenza. All I ever had to do for one was to change the ribbon now and then. Usually took a day or two for the black to rub off my fingers, couldn't seem to change a ribbon without getting my fingers blackened.

I have no disrespect for the people who had to type those fancy, precise works of art. A perfectly typed letter is truly a work of art, especially when done one of he old machines.

Over the years I have owned several Underwoods, would have one now if I didn't have my Webtv. Doubt if one could get an antique like that serviced anywhere. If something isn't electric it doesn't seem to exist. Criminy, you can't even seem to find a simple electric typewriter in retail nowadays. I loved an Underwood as a mechanic loves his own tools.

There was a bunch of Underwoods in the frieght house and in my memories, there is the echoing and re-echoing of sparks flying from the typewriters and their Clickety Clack. . . . . . . .

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