If you know me, then one of the things you may already know about me is I collect typewriters, kind of. I buy and sell and amass typewriters. I then get tired of my typewriters and sell some or give some away. Then I get to a point where I think, “Hey now, fifteen typewriters is not nearly enough typewriters,” and I start all over again. I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and in all that time, the model of typewriter I have owned most often is a Remington 5. I have owned four different Remington 5’s. I find them to be among the most beautiful typewriters ever made – Art Nouveau, clean lines, gleaming black frame, nickel-plated keys… I could go on, but here’s a picture, instead. One reason I have had so many Remington 5’s is that others seem to like them, too, and so—while they are difficult to part with—they are easy to sell. I love my typewriters, but I like cash, too. My first four Remington 5’s cost me a total of $45, and sold for a total of over $700. My typewriter collection is therefore part typewriter collection, and part stock market for dorks. Having been a kind-of-collector for this long, I can tell you that the days of finding a typewriter for $10 at a yard sale haven’t totally disappeared, but the days of finding a Remington 5 for that price most certainly have. Still, I am drawn to this model for one other reason: It’s my wife’s favorite typewriter. Most of the time, I suspect Mrs. B wishes I collected spoons or thimbles or anything else that could fit in one drawer and be hidden away, but she never minds one bit when we have a Remington 5 on a shelf. The universe began to align about a week-and-a-half ago. Recently, I joined some typewriter groups on Facebook, and shortly thereafter, I found a gentleman who was selling a serviced, working Remington 5 for what I felt was a very reasonable price. I decided I would be happy to own that typewriter, but there was only one problem: I was in Wisconsin, and he was in Minnesota. I know quite a few people who live in Minnesota, so I reached out and asked this gentleman if I could have one of my friends make the purchase on my behalf. He was fine with that, though of course he wanted to conclude our business as quickly as possible. If you know me, one thing you may not know about me is that I have been blessed in this lifetime to know a great many people who are far better friends to me than I have been to them. I could get into my social anxiety and my imposter syndrome and all the other things that make this true, but this is not a post about my mental health; it’s a post about typewriters and friends. Knowing I needed to move quickly to procure this typewriter, I put out an all-call to my Facebook friends, wondering if anyone might be willing to pick up this typewriter if I sent them the money, and hold it until I could get to Minnesota to retrieve it. To give you some idea of the quality of my friends, I had multiple offers, but in the end I chose my friend Cathy. She’ll hate that I include this paragraph, but Cathy is amazing. She’s instantly likeable. She’s an accomplished pianist. She’s incredibly clever, with an endearing bit of snarkiness I find charming. If you know her, you already love her, and if you don’t, your life would be better if you did; certainly my life has been. I selected her for the job because she seemed weirdly honored to be asked. She promised she didn’t mind doing it. When I told her one condition was that I had to buy her lunch when I came to pick up the typewriter, and she told me I could do that but I should know she had expensive taste. Seriously, Cathy is incredible. So Cathy came on board, and we commenced what I began to call Operation Remington Five, because I felt like a handler on a really dorky spy mission. I began to coordinate their meetup, direct messaging the seller and Cathy at the same time, bopping back and forth between them and laughing at the comments of both. Eventually a time and place were set for noon last week Friday, I sent Cathy the money to purchase the typewriter, and I waited for fate to run its course. Noon last Friday was a joy. I was in my classroom, when both Cathy and the seller began messaging me again, both clearly enjoying this semi-clandestine typewriter exchange in the parking lot of a local business. “I feel like I should be wearing a wire!” Cathy sent as she sat in the parking lot waiting, and then came the message I had waited for: “The eagle has landed!” Cathy sent, as she loaded the typewriter in her car. A week later, Cathy messaged to say she still wanted an expensive lunch, but would be driving from the Twin Cities to Milwaukee, and was willing to meet for her second typewriter exchange in a week. I had nothing going on that couldn’t be interrupted, so we chose the most Wisconsin-ish place possible to meet: a Kwik Trip parking lot in Wisconsin Dells. More messaging back and forth moved our noon meeting to 11:30 – “Sorry, I must be driving like a bat out of h***” she messaged – and I arrived at 11:22. She arrived six minutes later, and in those six minutes I had time to reflect on the weird confluence of circumstances that marked Operation Remington Five, but mostly on the kind of person Cathy is. Everything I told you earlier about Cathy is true. The one thing I didn’t tell you is that the qualities I mentioned are ones I remember, because until yesterday, when Operation Remington Five reached its conclusion, I hadn’t seen my friend Cathy in 37 years. The last time I spoke with her in person, I was in high school. We spent 10 minutes standing in a parking lot in the middle of a rain/snow mix, and it could easily have been a conversation we started almost four decades ago but never had a chance to finish. I am not a person who enjoys photographs, but even I felt compelled to take a dorky selfie to mark the occasion. “We can have no better clue to a man’s character than the company he keeps,” Nicolo Machiavelli wrote almost 500 years ago. I’ve never agreed with that, simply because the company I keep is made up of individuals of far greater character than I possess. Cathy had no need to get involved in any part of this, but she not only completed the purchase and delivered the typewriter in question: she also let me know she’d be willing to do it again if this seller and I find other ways to do business. I suppose I could make some comment about how typewriters can help bring us all together, and as a purveyor of dorky joy I even believe that to be true. But this past week-and-a-half ended up being far less about a typewriter and far more about gratitude. It’s a very nice Remington 5—the nicest I have owned—but the quality of the typewriter pales in comparison to the quality of my friend. I’m going to hold you to that lunch, Cathy. Order whatever you like.
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January 2022
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