The Million Dollar Typewriter
Page 1
Table of Contents
THE MILLION DOLLAR TYPEWRITER
COPYRIGHT
FOR JANICE WAYNE
A TRIBUTE TO ENRICO FERMI
CHAPTER I - THE SETTING
CHAPTER II - A - ROUTINE DAY
CHAPTER III - A UNIQUE MACHINE
CHAPTER IV - AN OFFER, OR A DEMAND?
CHAPTER V – WE LEAVE TOWN
CHAPTER VI - NORTHWARD
CHAPTER VII - MEET HERMAN BIGGS
CHAPTER VIII – BIGGS GOES TO WORK
CHAPTER IX - WE CROSS THE BORDER
CHAPTER X - SCORE ONE FOR SILVIA
CHAPTER XIII – ENTER MARCOS AND HIS BALLOON
CHAPTER XIV – THE PUZZLE IS SOLVED
THE MILLION DOLLAR
TYPEWRITER
Murray Segal
Copyright 2017 by Murray Segal
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and places in this story are the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to the real world is a coincidence.
Please do not reproduce this book in whole or in part without the permission of the author. Thanks.
Published by Piscataqua Press
142 Fleet St.
Portsmouth, NH 03801
www.ppressbooks.com
ISBN: 978-1-944393-46-5
FOR JANICE WAYNE
I have seen so many books dedicated to a wife or other loved one that it seems like a routine and almost meaningless thought. Trust me, this one has genuine meaning. There is no way in the world that this book would ever have seen the light of day without the help and encouragement of my wife, Janice Wayne. She endorsed the effort at the very beginning of the project and lifted me up many times when I was ready to quit. In addition to that help she was my I.T. department who managed to solve the dilemma of keeping the Toshiba going and dealing with the vagaries of Microsoft Word. She was the last one to read the book before it went off to the publisher. Thank you, Janice, from the very bottom of my heart. I love you dearly for all you have done for me over the years.
A TRIBUTE TO ENRICO FERMI
This story involves a typewriter that was in Fermi’s research lab at Columbia University in New York. Fermi fled Italy with his Jewish wife just prior to the outbreak of WWII.
In order to raise the money necessary to continue his work on nuclear chain reactions, he wrote a letter to President Roosevelt and got Albert Einstein to sign it.
Roosevelt made the money available, and that led to the development of the atomic bomb. This beat Nazi Germany to the punch and ended the war. The free world owes Fermi a debt of gratitude. It is the author’s opinion that he was the greatest hero to come out of that war.
CHAPTER I - THE SETTING
I operate a typewriter business in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Sure, typewriters are largely extinct but if you have one and need it repaired, I am the only shop. Not a bad situation. A series of strange events began here some time ago, but before I get into that let me enlighten you about this part of New Hampshire. Portsmouth is the center of this small region. It’s only an hour’s drive north of Boston and home to about 21,000 people. This is the same size it was in 1950. The Piscataqua River is the boundary with Maine to the north. It flows rapidly along the northern edge of the city and then empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Portsmouth grew up as a military place, from its beginning. The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard—which is really in nearby Kittery, Maine—is a major employer in the region. Over the years, the courts have heard arguments about whether the shipyard is in Maine or New Hampshire. They finally decided that it was north of the boundary line and thus in the state of Maine. The shipyard dominated the place for a long time and still employs thousands of people who work on the Navy's nuclear submarines there. But Portsmouth is no longer a Navy Town. As far as I know there is not a single bordello left. The former Pease Airforce Base still houses a fleet of Air Force Tankers. Pease has the longest runway on the entire east coast at 12,000 feet.
Portsmouth is cuter than cute and is festooned with restaurants, boutiques and dozens of historical sites. It even has a substantial bookstore right downtown. Really. Which brings me back to the obsolete work that I do. I have a hobby which recently exploded into a real business thanks to an expertly maximized website created by my daughter, Lisa. This success later turned out to be a curse in disguise. More on my three children Karen, Lisa and Paul later.
CHAPTER II - A - ROUTINE DAY
My name is Murray Segal and I live with my child bride Janice in the town of Exeter, New Hampshire. Exeter is a small town of 21,000 souls. It is home to the famous boarding high school, Phillips Exeter Academy. The Academy has about 1,000 students who come from all over the world. It was established in 1781 and has classes that are no larger than twelve students. The Academy utilizes a system where the students sit at a table with their instructor so they get all their questions quickly answered. The campus is large and beautiful. It puts many college campuses to shame. This is accomplished by a billion-dollar endowment and an enrollment fee of just under $50,000 a year. The town was the birthplace of the Republican Party. Both Abe Lincoln and George Washington stayed here. The residents, however, like to think of themselves as being very liberal and they seem to be of that persuasion. The business district is marked by mostly red brick buildings that look like they are straight out of the early part of the 1900’s.
In case you are wondering I am a relatively young 83 and Janice Wayne my child bride is 7 years younger. My cardiologist once said to us, he is old, you are not.
Typically, an ordinary workday for me is a boring day. I follow a path through Portsmouth and the surrounding communities searching for typewriters. I buy them at antiques shops, yard and garage sales and other locations. I sometimes find them at places like Goodwill and the Salvation Army. I see people searching through the used clothing racks at these two places, and it makes me wonder how such a wealthy nation can leave so many people in such dire financial condition that they must rely on used clothing.
I buy typewriters for my shop in any condition, including those that I know that I will scrap for parts. For example, most typewriters are full of very small machine screws that are just about impossible to buy today. I save them and any other useful parts, such as platens and nickel-plated parts. I only junk machines that I cannot repair. It is not my intention to turn this into a tutorial on typewriters but it is, after all, a mystery about a typewriter so you need to understand some basic facts about the machines. Namely what I do to find, repair and sell them. So, excuse me if I do go on a little too long.
To a limited extent, I keep a collection of typewriters at home. The most valuable of these is The Million Dollar Typewriter (MDTW), which I will introduce to you in a little bit. I also have an 1896 Blickensderfer which I consider to be the most ingenious machine of its time or any other time. Contrary to what you might think, it was not of foreign origin but was made in Stamford, Connecticut. It was named after the inventor. He might have lasted longer in business had he named the machine “Jones,” or even “Smith.” The machine had interchangeable type fonts much like the IBM that came along 100 years later. It did not use a ribbon. Rather, when a key was depressed, the striker swiped an ink pad on its way to the paper. Speaking of the keys, Blickensderfer did some research and found that a typist could type much faster if the keyboard was arranged with the most frequently used keys placed in the center of the keyboard, so he produced a model with this arrangement. As a sop to the rest of the industry, he also offered a model with the standard and slower “QWERTY” arrangement which we are all now stuck with on our computers and cell phones. What might have been!
CHAPTER III - A UNIQUE MACHINE
I digress again, so back to the story of The Million Dollar Typewriter. I do not know exactly what this machine is worth for a host of reasons. The prime determinant relates to whether certain documents were typed on the machine. What I know for certain is that this 1914 Underwood typewriter was located at the Columbia University Physics Laboratory of Enrico Fermi during the Second World War. I know this for sure because there is a tag firmly affixed to the side of the typewriter that says it is the property of the Lab and owned by the U.S. Navy.
Fermi got out of Italy prior to the war (lucky for us) with his Jewish wife. He led the race with Germany to develop atomic weapons and of course he won. I believe he single-handedly is responsible for saving the free world from the Nazis. But how many people now even recognize his name?
The original letter to President Roosevelt that bore Albert Einstein's signature was, in fact, written by Fermi. He presented Einstein with two different versions of the letter. Einstein picked one and signed it. It is still hard for me to believe that Einstein was a pacifist, and aside from signing the letter he gave virtually no support to the research that led to the project. Einstein went off to his comfortable office at Princeton and refused to help with the development of the bomb.
Fermi effectively used Einstein's fame to get President Roosevelt's attention. Thankfully it worked and Government funds became available for Fermi’s Lab. The U.S. Navy sponsored the project because the original thinking was that if Germany did develop the weapon first, it would be delivered to our homeland via a port facility.
Now, a word about the documents that could make this typewriter extremely valuable. If I could have documented that the original Roosevelt letter was typed on this machine, it would be worth many millions. One way to accomplish this would be to identify a peculiarity on the typewriter's strikers that could be matched to an impression on the Roosevelt letter. I did a crude forensic examination and could not find any such match. Another problem was the process of trying to place the typewriter at the lab when we know the letter was typed (i.e. 1939). There is a database, run by volunteers, that relates typewriter serial numbers (which are stamped on the machine) to year of production and this data bank says that The Million Dollar Typewriter was produced in 1914. Although this data source is subject to error, it is generally accepted in the trade. It is the best database we have. I was not inclined to accept this as the gospel, since I had acquired a model of one machine from a major American manufacturer that did not even appear in the data bank at all. In other words, it simply did not exist although I owned one of them. In any event, we know for sure that the typewriter was at Fermi's lab during the war and many important documents were undoubtedly typed on it. So, there I was with a very valuable machine that was too large for a safety deposit box, too valuable to store in my closet, too valuable to bury in a hole in the ground or a cabin in the woods. It was too valuable to publicize, so naturally I kept it quiet. At some point in the future I was sure that I would want to try and sell it. That would be when I thought I knew as much about the machine as I could ever learn. I kept the MDTW at home in a large box close to the other machines in my private collection.
CHAPTER IV - AN OFFER, OR A DEMAND?
I need to explain how the MDTW came into my possession. A couple of years ago, I got a telephone call from a woman who lived in northern Massachusetts. More about that later. At that time, I knew nothing about the machine except that it was in Fermi’s Lab during WWII. It stays in my closet at home for a month or so. I think no more about it until one morning, a nicely dressed gentleman comes into the shop.
“Good morning, sir. How can I help you?”
He speaks with a decidedly German accent.
“I understand that you have recently purchased a 1914 Underwood typewriter from a young man who is a student at Columbia University. I would like to buy it. I am prepared to offer you a fair price for it. May I see it now?”
The words are politely spoken but they strike me as more like a command as opposed to an offer. Bessie and Aaron did not raise a dummy. I reason that with someone so eager to buy the machine that there must be something about it that I do not know.
“You could certainly look at it if were here. But it’s not. Perhaps, you could come by in a few days and I will arrange to have it here for you to inspect.”
“We are in town only briefly so speed is of the utmost. Can you have it here this afternoon?”
More like a demand than a question! And I think to myself who is the “WE” he just mentioned?
“No, I am alone in the shop as you can see. However, I can try to have it here sometime tomorrow, if that works for you. Perhaps you could get a nice room at the Exeter Inn. I can call you tomorrow when the typewriter is here.”
“No need for that. We will be staying in our jet airplane tonight. I will be here when you open, tomorrow morning.”
There is the “WE” again. So, he at least has a pilot with him. And again, it comes out like an order. He flies here on a plane to buy the typewriter that only three people know I have. I wonder how he knows I have it. How strange is that? His plane is a jet. Is that supposed to impress me?
“OK, see you then.”
No good-by, no thank you or anything else. He simply wheels around in a decidedly military manner and leaves. I’m not thinking too clearly at this point but my guts tell me I am not in a good situation. I do what I always do when confronted with such a situation. I put a closed sign in the window and head home to tap the best brain in the family. Janice, of course.
As I walk in the door, she says, “Hey, what did you do to get home so early? Didn’t sell the entire shop, did you?”
“Well no but I apparently made one sale that puzzles the life out of me. Tell me what you think of this.” I give her a detailed account of the early morning visitor.
“Well, what’s wrong with selling a typewriter? Isn’t that why you have a shop? How much did he offer for the MDTW?”
“We didn’t get that far. Besides, that’s almost irrelevant. What I’m really concerned about is how he knew about the machine and how did he know I had it?”
“I see your point. He must know something about the machine that you don’t. You said he came here by jet?”
“He did, presumably a jet of his own. I wish I knew some more about that guy. Maybe I’m all wet and he is just a big-time collector like Tom Hanks or Nicolas Cage.”
“If he came by airplane, why don’t you call your friend Josh at the airport? Maybe he can tell you something about where your customer came from.”
“Aha. That’s why I came to talk to you. Thanks. I am going to run out to Pease now and talk to Josh.”
I have known Josh for some time. I met him in Tallahassee, Florida where I was a student pilot and he operated the tower at the local airport. This is how I got to meet him for the first time. I was practicing landings and takeoffs one Sunday morning. I didn’t venture away from the airport as I usually did because there was a storm front moving in. I was the first one to fly the Aeronca Champ after a 400-hour overhaul. My instructions from the airport owner was to warm up the engine thoroughly before I took off to make sure that the engine was operating properly after the overhaul. I followed his instructions to the letter. As I was flying the downwind leg of my 3rd landing, I noticed an AF Jet flying a straight-in landing approach. The Air Force based nearby at Tyndall Airforce Base used the Tallahassee Airport to practice instrument approaches. They never actually landed, just flew down the runway at a very low altitude. I decided to extend my downwind leg and land after the jet passed by. My altitude was 800 feet. When the jet passed the runway I turned in my base leg (i.e. a left turn to get over to the runway). I cut back on the throttle and as I did the engine totally quit on me. After what seemed like ten minutes of terror, I finally turned into the runway and prayed that I had enough altitude to reach the runway. I was in a totally abnormal pattern, a long way from the end of the runway. When the terror subsided, I flattened out my glid
e angle so I could get as much distance out of the plane as possible while at the same time avoiding a stall which would have been fatal. For those of you unfamiliar with these old planes they do not have an electric starter, so I couldn’t try to restart the engine. I also did not have a radio, like most small planes of that era, so I couldn’t call the tower to see if there were any other jets following behind me. All the way down I kept looking for a green light from the tower to signify that it was ok to land. Never got it. All this transpired on my 10th hour of training and only my 2nd solo hour. I made the runway with about 50 feet to spare. Lucky me. Just after I came to a stop and was pushing the plane off to the side of the runway, the owner arrived and started accusing me of failing to apply the carburetor heat to prevent icing. He checked the instrument panel and found that I had indeed applied the carburetor heat. This calmed him down but then he got into one of the seats in the plane and made me go for a ride with him. He tried everything he could to make the engine stall, but it wouldn’t. When we got back to the airport, I went up to the tower and met Josh. When I asked him why he never gave me the green light to land, he explained that he knew I was inexperienced and was afraid to confuse me. A weak answer if you ask me. I figured that Josh would remember this, so I went out to the former Pease Airforce Base in Portsmouth, where he was now the manager. He owed me one, didn’t he?
“Good morning Josh. It’s good to see that you are still running these aircraft safely in and out of the airport. Given the great variety of these planes in terms of size and speed, it seems to me almost a miracle that you don’t have at least one collision every week. You must be doing something right.”
“Lord I already feel like you are buttering me up so you must need something. Yes? And by the way good morning to you too.”