In A NutshellXI

In a Nutshell

A place set aside to answer 201 autobiographical questions
from a mother for her daughter. This may take awhile...join us if you like.

11. This present I got from my parents really sticks in my memory.

When I was 12 the list of things I wanted to be when I grew up included lighthouse keeper, astronaut, astronomer, adventurer, reporter, and writer. For at least two of those, I needed a typewriter.

Also when I was 12, I read Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking For Teenagers. And he said, that if you wanted something you should repeat to yourself some number of times, "I'm going to get . . ." I was game for that, and so I did. I'm not certain, all this time later, how long I read the book before my 13th birthday, but I repeated my magic phrase many times a day.

And, what do you know? It worked! For my 13th birthday, I got a typewriter with a book on how to type and key covers so I would learn where to put my fingers without looking at the letters on the keys. I was so impressed that I had to tell my parents about the book and how it worked. And when I did, Daddy laughed and laughed. I asked him what was funny, and he said that it would always work so long as I wanted something reasonable and remembered to mutter about it for months around people who loved me. Although I hadn't realized that anyone could hear me, apparently I had been going around muttering, "I'm going to get a typewriter, I'm going to get a typewriter" everywhere I went. One of my teachers had called Daddy to tell him I wanted a typewriter, just in case I had only been doing it at school.

A typewriter needs something to sit on, so in addition to that, Daddy made me the most wonderful desk I've ever owned. It was a hollow-core door, with no hardware on so that it was totally flat, with two iron legs at one end and a two drawer file cabinet on the other. My typewriter sat at one end, and in later years, my sewing machine sat next to the files, and I still had all the space in the world for homework or cutting out patterns or doing crafts.