Bleeding Heart

I'm sure it's easy to imagine that I selected this as my image of the week because it's a typewriter and has to do with writing. That I must have a nostalgic reaction to it, and sigh at the romanticism of the click click.

Nope.

When I saw this image, I was thirteen again and flirting with my junior high crush in a conversation about M*A*S*H. You see, back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, there were no computers and so junior high elective classes were typically Art, Typing, Home Ec... that kind of thing. I took typing and the monstrosities that we worked on looked like the one in the picture. Big, honkin' things made out of metal and impossible to lift from the table.

Where do Glen and M*A*S*H fit into the picture? Well, as fate would have it, he was seated next to me when he was added to the class a bit late. We already knew each other from all our core classes, so strangers we were not. But here I had him all to myself. You see, I was bussed in to a school where everyone knew each other since kindergarten because it was the neighborhood school. But a handful of us were bussed in from the boonies, having passed a test and interview to attend a particular program there. I made it into the program and Glen was in it as well, along with all his little neighborhood buddies.

But this was elective class and everyone was disseminated for a change and so Glen and I became friends. We shared a love for the Korean War sitcom, and it so happened that the series finale was all anyone could talk about. Big, long ending.... aired past Glen's bedtime. I'd never had a bedtime so I watched it along with the general masses. The next day, in Typing class, Glen wanted to know everything. He said he'd taped it, but wouldn't be able to see it until that night and the suspense was killing him. So we spent the class period whispering about the episode behind our typewriters.

I remember clearly that I was telling him about how everyone said good-bye to Hawkeye at the end, up at the chopper pad. And Glen said that he had snuck out of his bedroom and could hear from the banister as his parents watched. He said he heard some of the good-byes, but that then there was a really loooooong silence. I laughed and told him that that was when Hawkeye grabbed Margaret and kissed her. Glen said it couldn't have been that part because it was a really long silence. I told him it was a really long kiss.

A couple of young teens, both giddy at the culmination of an 11-year flirtation between the two characters. The click, click of the keys drowning out our own flirtation.