Dear Mr. Hanks:
They told me I’d be corrupted by Hollywood. Seeing as how you’re one of Hollywood’s biggest capital-M capital-S Movie Stars, it would stand to reason that I would, then, be corrupted by you.
Funny, though, I never felt compelled to become a cross dresser, nor tempted to date a mermaid. Rather than giving in to deviant sexual urges, I laughed innocently when I—a mere one year older than thirteen-year old Josh in “Big”—heard him say, “I get to be on top.”
I never bought a houseboat in Seattle, never succumbed to eating Bubba Gump shrimp, and never tried to become an astronaut OR a toy cowboy.
I never wanted to live in an airport, or smear a volleyball with my own blood, or piss off Catholics in my hunt for the Holy Grail.
Nope, nothing you’ve done has corrupted me at all. Until now.
Darn1 you, Tom Hanks.
I’ve taken up writing in earnest recently, and, in the interest of avoiding both distractions and macular degeneration, came to the conclusion that I ought to ditch my laptop for a manual typewriter.
I texted my dad—keeper of all the things, ever—in the hopes that he still had either my sister’s unwieldy Royal FP or the smaller, compact Olympia SM3 that I’d favored as a kid. The one I used to compose this gem:
My dog has fleas
Made out of bees
He doesn’t mind
Since he is blind
I sure. Love him.
My dad never gets rid of anything.2 Surely he still had them.
Alas, no.
No worries, I thought, I’ll just buy one online. Nobody uses typewriters anymore. I can probably pick one up for a buck plus shipping.
Wait, what the…?
FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS for a manual typewriter? In the 80s, you couldn’t give them away fast enough.
That’s when I learned that typewriters have made a comeback. Typewriters are hip. Typewriters are so cool, they made a movie about them. And you, sir, YOU, have finally succeeded in corrupting me.
Yep, I learned from YOU that some typewriters are better than others. From YOU I learned to drool over the clean lines of the Lettera 22. From YOU I learned I could measure my productivity with the sounds click, click, and ding.
And I learned all this at a time when I most definitely could not afford to spend money on a typewriter. In my younger days, finances be damned, I would have bought one anyway. These days, I’m much thriftier. A cool quarter mil in student loans—you, too, can throw away your financial future!—might have something to do with that.
I resigned myself to the pangs of unrequited love. I lusted over the Olivetti from afar. Followed auctions on eBay and Goodwill. Dreamed of hearing the snap snap snap of the keys, longed for the ding of the margin bell, yearned for the ratcheting of the carriage return beneath my fingers.
Someone at the local Methodist church learned of my plight and gave me the electric Smith Corona SL 575 that had been gathering dust in the corner of the office for decades. Meh. A friend I hadn’t seen in several years offered up her sporty, tricolor Royal Futura 800. All flash, no substance. No, my heart belonged to the Lettera, a typewriter I’d never met, and loved only because Hollywood told me to.
‘Til one day, the heavens parted. The universe heard my cries, and a friend of a friend walked in to the coffee shop where we meet each Sunday to write and plopped it in front of me. A Lettera. (It’s a 35 l. Can’t have everything. But hey, it was free.)
And now I have carpal tunnel.3
Darn you, Tom Hanks.
Yours sincerely,
LaShelle
- I waffled between “damn you” and “darn you.” “Damn you” clearly packs the most punch, but it seemed a little much for a letter to someone I don’t know. Even though I think you’d laugh.
- To my dad’s credit, he’s recently been purging all the stuff he’s collected over the years. So this statement is no longer entirely accurate. But half a century of conditioning still makes it true for me.
- Lest you feel guilty about this, I should clarify that the carpal tunnel preceded the typewriter. The typewriter helped it come back with a vengeance. (But you can still feel a little guilty, if you want.)
