JOY ALONG THE WAY: PAPER UP, PAPER DOWN, SPACE, SHIFT, LOCK, ETC.

Sometimes, after a long session at the typewriter, I pull out the final sheet, give the old gray machine a loving pat and whisper, "Thank you."

Other times I sit before it and just run my fingers over the keys, not hard enough to cause an impression, but just in appreciation, and maybe hoping they'll transmit to me some words that would be worth reading. Maybe a musical composer does the same thing with his ivories.

The typewriter is one of my tools to connect me to the world. It doesn't make music as the piano, of course, except for the tiny bell when one is approaching the marginal limit. Yet, its steady click, the rattling of the keys as if I'm playing with sea shells is sort of lyrical to me -- "Silver bells and cockle shells and pretty words all in a row."

It is my faithful friend, just sitting there in a cozy little corner, inviting me to come and say something on paper. A light is just at the right height and angle. An open dictionary and thesaurus are close by. Some little Post-it notes are on the wall behind my typewriter showing samples of hard-for-me-to-remember punctuation such as a quote within a quote at the end of a sentence when the final word is one that omits the g in the syllable-ing.

Why am I getting all emotional about a typewriter? I fear that some time soon, as cyberspace techniques go whizzing along, the typewriter may become a relic. Indeed, a friend who has a not-so-old typewriter says she can no longer find ribbons for it. They aren't being made. I think of the monks, way back then, who laboriously copied the Scriptures by hand, each word having to be the exact distance apart. Perhaps typewriting will be likened to the working methods of the monks sooner than we think.

While I'm in this paen-of-praise-for-my-typewriter mood, let me speak of the warmth of a typewritten letter compared to those that come looking as if they've been printed. I expect I've thrown away some personal letters because upon first glance they appear to be a junk mail flyer of some kind. So perfect. No difference in the shading of the letters. No personality in spite of perfection.

I like hand written letters, if legible, the kind that when the writer has reached the bottom of the page, yet has something more to say, just continues on up the margin and maybe across the top. Only a friend would do this and reading such a letter gives me more time to think of that friend and reminisce about the times we shared together. I don't expect to see any printed letters with this personal touch. What can I say but, "Old fogey me!"

Having just slapped myself with an uncomplimentary appellation, a small voice inside says, "Go back and re-read Tennyson's "Locksley Hall." As I remembered, the narrator in the poem protested modern mechanized (1842!) things, but ended the poem by reluctantly accepting the inevitability of change. After I had read those memorable lines, "For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see . . ." which wound up with the narrator's acceptance of change, I sat for a while, thinking, and wrote, "For I dipt into the future far as human eye could see. Saw the vision of the world and still one typewriter-ee." Stubborn me.

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.