Father's Typewriter
Houston, Beth

BETH: Reading and writing have always been at the center of my life. As a small child I can remember my father sitting at the kitchen table with his Smith Corona portable typewriter and his famous writer's club textbooks that he was writing his lessons from. I was so fascinated by the sound of the typewriter, the smell of the ribbon, just so enamored with my father and anything that he did was great to me. So I think that seeded the idea of writing into my brain, and also reading. We were a very enclosed family, didn't get outside the home very much, just not very social. Books became my lifeline, my connection to the outside world. I could always afford a dime for the bus and I could go downtown to the library, check out a stack of books, bring them home, entertain myself for many, many days with those. I kind of lived my life through adventures that the characters in those books had. They really connected me to what was possible in the world.