Last fall I ran a typewriter giveaway—I hope to make it an annual event for Paper Blogging subscribers—and here I am at last with the story of what happened.

I asked entrants to leave a comment on the original giveaway post explaining why they wanted a typewriter. The lengthy answers make for an eloquent summary of why typewriters are still so beloved today.

If only I could send one off to each person, I thought.

Why give away a typewriter?

The process of finding and buying typewriters has become an enjoyable second nature to me but there are only so many machines I want to own.

My current focus is on writing a book manuscript using the perfectly wonderful typewriters I already have.

But mostly, the world is so full of bad news. In this small way, I can author a little good news for someone.

I typed up the hundred or so entries, one name and email per line, cut each entry into a slip, and put them in the ‘jam jar of choosing.’ After a thorough shake, I got ready to pull a name.

Who is going to win? I didn't want to disappoint anyone. Also, just based on the comments, I wanted to get a typewriter to Molly Ovenden in Minnesota because her answer was so spectacular.

But I stuck to my stated method and pulled a name.

The winner was Sarah in Colorado! Yay! I emailed Sarah, and her excited reply came back.

Oh my gosh I am beyond excited - your typewriter is going to be SO WELL LOVED!!!!! (Help, I’ve lapsed into ALL CAPS)

I got all the details of her mailing information.

Then, a seemingly impossible trip fell into place, and my husband and I flew out to see our oldest daughter and her husband for a week and celebrate our 33rd anniversary.

Once home, I concentrated on doing a thorough job of shipping the typewriter to Sarah.

[click thumbnail images to see full size]

The Smith-Corona Galaxie giveaway typewriter arrived in one piece, ahead of schedule. Thank you, FedEx.

Sarah sent me these lovely shots with a typed reply to my note. And, ah yes, another typewriter cat.

So that’s it for the first annual Paper Blogging typewriter giveaway, no?

But wait, there’s more!

What’s the typewriter market like in Minnesota? I wondered, in a moment of distraction, getting ready for the trip to see my daughter.

She lives in Minnesota.

I set the search location on Facebook Marketplace to the town where we’d be staying, with a radius of 50 miles or so. And changed ‘Delivery Method’ from All to Local Pickup.

Ah, the grass is always greener.

Ooh, look at all those inexpensive Olympias! An SM3 for $40, and plenty of varieties. I enjoyed scrolling, knowing I would not be bringing home a typewriter from my travels.

And then I stopped and stared.

"Wait, what?!"

It was another Hunter Red early SCM Galaxie, identical in every way to the machine I was about to ship to Sarah. Oh, my goodness.

Smith-Corona 6 Series

The first version of the Smith-Corona 6 Series was produced for just over a year before the design was tweaked and one of the colors dropped. Hunter Red. So, very few red machines were made. And here was the second I’d found in a few months.

I thought of Molly Ovenden in Minnesota, thought of our trip, and showed my husband.

The machine was for sale at a quirky antique store called The Pink Elephant, twenty minutes from the airport where we would land on Thursday. This was Sunday.

“I think you should get it,” said my husband. He has learned to go with the flow.

I messaged the seller, and he replied right away.

“It's kind of a rare color,” he wrote. “I’ve been selling typewriters for thirty years, and it’s only the second I've come across in all that time.”

It looked in great shape as far as I could tell, but I’d like to have seen it first. He was unwilling to put it on hold for four days, so when The Pink Elephant—where the seller is one of forty or so vendors—opened on Monday, I called and paid for the typewriter over the phone. I hoped I hadn’t just done something dumb.

“We should be there on Thursday afternoon. Our flight lands just after midday."

"We close at 5:00. Hope to see you then. The typewriter will be in the backroom with your info on it. Just let someone at the desk know you're there to pick it up."

The plot was laid.

Meanwhile, I'd contacted Molly O. Thankfully she would be visiting her mom that week, not far from where we'd be staying. We set up a time and place to meet at her favorite tearoom. I didn’t explain about the typewriter, other than to say, “I might just have a typewriter for you.” I wanted to be sure it worked!

Molly and I know each other from the London Writers Salon, a worldwide online writing community where she is one of many Writers’ Hour moderators, and I am an attendee, but we'd never met.

She is also a new typewriter poet, doing several gigs per week, relying on one typewriter.

Minnesota

One way I de-stress on a trip is to take along a sketchbook. Travel sketching is something I've been doing since 2009. It’s a practice I use at home also—an anchor amid the swirling sea of ‘things to do’, daily difficulties, and digital mayhem.

After all the last-minute details of securing cat care, an Airbnb, and a car rental, as well as getting our youngest daughter to her friend’s house for the week and getting ourselves through Boston rush hour, it was a pleasure to sit in the terminal and sketch.

We landed on time, gathered our things, and headed to Car Rental. What could go wrong? We had a car booked for 1:30, the store was 20 minutes away and closed at 5:00.

Oh, my goodness, is that the line?!

A vast crowd thronged the rental car hall, lines snaking back and forth. Here and there children draped themselves over baggage carts and whimpered; mothers pushed strollers back and forth, rocking on their heels as babies fussed. A taut look here, a glance at a watch there. I sat with the luggage. My husband asked at the end of the line what was up.

Twenty minutes, forty, an hour. We made friends around us. We all cheered when one family got a car and wished them well on their travels.

Eventually, we learned that only one Hertz employee was in for the day behind the scenes, ferrying the clean and ready vehicles from the drop-off spot to the pick-up part of the airport. There were plenty of cars ready but no one available to move them. Most of the drooping folks around us had been waiting two hours.

We were meeting Molly the next afternoon but also had plans with our daughter for the morning. I was hoping to look the typewriter over and make sure it worked.

It's okay. It will all work out.

I watched the time creep towards 4:00 pm. Picking up the car is taking longer than the flight. Then 4:15, and 4:30. At 4:35 pm, I let go of my nicely made plans.

Minnesota is famed as a place of politeness and perhaps the air had got to us already. It was the politest gaggle of disgruntlement possible. But I noticed a knot of politely disgruntled passengers forming at the desk.

Ah, disgruntled is good. I'll join in.

The poor guy on duty had not caused this problem, but I wanted to get my story in. "Can I just say, I had a car booked for 1:30 for something 20 minutes from the airport with a 5:00 pm deadline and I'm about to miss it."

He shuffled about, eyes on his phone, figuring out this and that, jabbing at various links.

“Here,” he said, handing me paperwork, “This will get you out of here."

(Possibly, out of my hair.)

We had a car! Incredulous, I dashed back to my husband, we grabbed luggage handles and wheeled our stuff out of there, scanning for elevators, info, where do we go? The car was, let's just say, about two upgrades. Not the little tin can we'd paid for. We threw suitcases in the trunk, jumped in, and my normally cautious husband revved off. As we exited into rush hour traffic, I called the store.

"Hi, I'm heading over to pick up a typewriter."

"Ah, yes, I spoke to you on Monday!"

"GPS says we'll be there at 5:02. Is there any way you can stay open a few minutes longer?"

"Sure. You just knock loudly. We'll open right up."

The glorious Midwest sky, the wide roads, the unfamiliar car and route ... Improbably, we pulled up at exactly 5:00 and I scooted into the empty store.

"My husband is thrilled," I said, as I shook hands with the store owner, and checked the machine, and glanced about at the intriguing goods around me, "I don't have time to buy anything else."