A new platen for my Hermes Rocket is supposed to arrive today- If it does, I will install and take it to Kauai tomorrow for a 4-day birthday trip and use it to write letters and postcards by the pool and the beach. If it doesn’t, I’ll take my Royal (Seiko-Silver) instead. I have a Smith-Corona Electra 120 that I need to clean and service and get ready for posting. It belonged to a now deceased State Farm Agent (it has his name written on it and a business card taped to it) who sold life insurance. These sales representatives must have had their machines regularly serviced, because it is in very nice shape- I have another machine that belonged to a different life insurance agent, and it was also obviously well cared for. I only have to replace the drive belts and throw new feet on it. I guess they took their machines to people’s houses to write up the policies. I looked up his obituary and his son is following in his footsteps. He probably uses a laptop though. I think that was a fairly significant digression…