Louis L’Amour (1908-1988) was a spectacularly successful author of Western novels and stories. Here he is at his Olympia SM3 in 1953, and at an IBM Model B or C in later life.
Dave Cannon has discovered some wonderful passages on typewriters in L’Amour’s memoir Education of a Wandering Man.
These are so good I just had to type them up on my Reporters Special. Thanks, Dave!
Thanks for posting this story Richard, it brings back some interesting memories from my post-divorce life, served onboard the USS America (CV-66). I was never much of a writer, but while out to sea on several long deployments (the first Haitian coup and the Bosnian War), I became somewhat of a letter writer – thanks to Ann Landers. Because of a column she wrote we received boxes of letters, from all over America, addressed to “Any Soldier, Sailor or Marine”. So we gratefully became ‘Pen-Pals’ with quite a few of them. We also had plenty of time to read, with 12 hours on duty, and 12 hours off – seven days a week while out to sea. Fortunately for us, Louis L’Amour’s estate provided us with PLENTY of reading material – paperback copies of every book he ever wrote! I never learned who set it up, but I was told by some ‘Lifers’ (career sailors), that this had been going on for quite some time. So, thank you Louis!
Interesting! Both the letters and the novels must have been very welcome.