Today’s theme for @genealogyphoto is ‘tool’. I chose to go with the definition of ‘tool’ as a device utilized in the practice of a profession (per Merriam-Webster online).
My tool of choice:

An Underwood manual typewriter.

This was the tool of a writer. This one belongs to me now. It used to belong to my dad. He wrote many papers on it. He wrote his masters thesis and many other papers on it when he was getting his bachelors and masters degrees. His doctoral thesis was typed on a computer. It was the first of his papers ever done on a computer. You can find his doctoral thesis paper in the archives at the University of Arkansas and you could even order a copy of it online here if you wanted to:
University of Arkansas Library Archives
My dad’s doctoral thesis: The effect of nonverbal communication training on self-esteem, anxiety and locus of control/ by Roy E. Drake
In my high school years I had an Apple IIE computer for writing papers at home but mostly I just used pen/pencil and paper back then. The IIE was for playing Conan the Barbarian or Oregon Trail (which I sucked at).

An Apple IIE desktop computer circa 1987.

After I married I used an electric typewriter and then in the late 1990’s I got a desktop PC to use. Sometime after moving back to Oklahoma, I moved to laptop computers. In 2009 I did a writing challenge and completed a stage play script on my laptop. I was so proud of that script because it was a completed project. The title of the play was Victory. Shortly after I completed the script (and before I printed it off), my laptop crashed and took my play with it. I wasn’t feeling very victorious. Since then I’ve only completed blog posts and I post those shorty after writing them. I haven’t had any major losses of blog posts. (Knock on wood.) In addition, I’ve come to love external drives.
I’m typing this blog post on my trusty (and old) Toshiba laptop. I’ve had this one since 2012 when my last laptop crashed- which just happened to be right after I started working on my comprehensive final exam paper for my masters degree (and I had less than a week to complete the 20-page exam paper). This one’s pretty banged up. My laptops tend to show wear since I take them with me everywhere.
I still write a lot with pencil/pen and paper despite having laptops. Sometimes you just need to feel pencil on paper. There are lots of tools that writers use today but my laptop is my favorite. We’ve come a long way since Underwood typewriters. I’m glad. Even so, I hope to refurbish that Underwood one day.

Until next time,
Lisa @ Days of Our Lives