My Mother’s Typewriter
The beginning of a relentless obsession
My mother arrived at Ellis Island in America with a two-year-old little boy, a belly that was 8 months pregnant, two suitcases, and a typewriter case that held the typewriter that she had been using for the previous 7 years. After a long day of endless red tape she finally made it to Penn Station where she caught a train for Kentucky where her American husband awaited her arrival.
A month later I was born, on American soil; an American. The first gift my mother gave to me was life. A dozen years later she would give me her typewriter.
With my American father being in the military, over the next decade or so the family moved constantly. The family also increased in population with the addition of two younger siblings; both girls. We moved from army base to army base across America then we moved to Europe where we moved from army base to army base then we moved back to America where we moved from army base to army base. In the first 11 years of my life we lived in 9 different places.
We moved to the 10th place right after I finished 5th grade. My father retired from the military (in order to avoid being sent to Vietnam) and we ended up in far, far, far west Texas. That is where I finished my K-12 education.
