I like recounting the backstory behind each of my typewriters. This story starts a few years ago when I walked into a thrift store in Albuquerque, near UNM, and spotted this blue Olivetti-Underwood 21, in its case. The store owner was asking about $20.

I played with the keys and carriage, enough to discern that it appeared to be in good mechanical shape. At that price, it seemed like a good deal. And then she told me the backstory, which cinched the deal.

She said the guy that sold it to her had travelled cross-country, in the late 1960s, on a motorcycle, to New Mexico, with the intention of becoming a writer. She said that he traded his motorcycle for this typewriter.

It was a good tale, I thought, even if it might not be true. But how was I to know?

I brought the machine home, excited to dig into it, clean it up, and start using it. Once home, I opened up the case and noticed an old, yellowed receipt in the lid. The receipt was from 1969, involving a car dealership on Lomas Blvd, and a business machine store, also on Lomas. So there was a trade between a motorcycle and this typewriter. The story was true.

This machine has been one of my best typewriters, solid, dependable, with good typing action and clear imprint.

I still don't know who the writer was. Could he/she have been famous? Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe a bit of research might be in order.

But the story doesn't end there. Just a few months after I bought the typewriter, that thrift store closed up. And it hadn't been open all that long before I discovered it. Almost as if its sole purpose in life was to get this typewriter into my hands.

And that's the backstory.

P1100809a by jvcabacus, on Flickr