Today I was thinking that I should really be in the salvage business -- rescuing the old castoffs of this throwaway society, lovingly restoring them, and presenting them as the artifacts they truly are of our former culture, the one that existed before we encountered Future Shock.
After all, I've been collecting things for at least half a century. Old bottles, coins, stamps, magazines, books, photos, postcards, baseball cards -- the list goes on and on.
Tonight's major find was this old "compact" typewriter -- the laptop of its time. I used to work on a machine like this, and in fact, I still had one until relatively recently, when it found its way to the recycling bin. My kids have been asking me whether I have any old typewriters (they think they are "cool"), and I've only been able to answer, "I used to..."
Thanks to one of my neighbors, following the local custom of putting whatever you don't want anymore out on the sidewalk for anyone passing by to claim (We don't bother to add a "Free" sign, because we all know the language of our streets), I now have retaken possession of this sweet portable Remington.
It makes that old comforting sound, you know, clickety-click, that a century ago came from the open windows in Rudyard Kipling's compound in old India, as that masterful story-teller pounded out his stories at night.
Or Conrad, Hemingway, Faulkner, take your pick. For many decades, this was the sound of literature and the sound of journalism. Even as recently as the Watergate scandal of 1974, the signature film made of Woodward and Bernstein's legendary reporting that ended Richard Nixon's presidency, closes with a series of headlines typed on an old manual typewriter.
Because that's what most of us still used at that time. Even at Rolling Stone.
In the years immediately before I joined that magazine's staff, a group of us who were living collectively used to go out scavenging at night in our old Chevy van. I'd drive down the alleys of San Francisco, and my buddy Howard would jump out and claim the goods. His main passion was the lovely old art that graced the wooden fruit and vegetable boxes stacked outside of stores and restaurants, especially around Chinatown.
Hell, I've still got some of those around here!
They grace the small desk where my kids and I work on their math homework, and the colorful old labels remain firmly in place where Howard attached them over 30 years ago -- yet one more reminder of a world that has passed, yielding plastics, functionality, and digital technology in its wake.
Photo by Junko-30-
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