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For over a decade, Chuck Dardas, President of AlphaUSA, has been sponsoring a book club at the Livonia Senior Center. This club gathers 40-60 seniors three to four times a year to discuss contemporary literature.
For the past four years, this typewriter has had the privilege of being placed next to Dardas as a co-host of the club. It's clear who the real driving force behind this club's success is, and it's certainly not the typewriter.
This Wednesday, the group convened to listen to Steven Ujifusa share his fascination with the S.S. United States, America's most illustrious ocean liner, now moored in a Philadelphia dry dock, facing an uncertain fate.
Ujifusa revealed that the SS United States, completed in 1952, was celebrated as a technological marvel in an era when "Made in America" signified supreme quality.
His book, "A Man and His Ship," was acclaimed by The Wall Street Journal as one of the top ten non-fiction books of 2012.
Publishers Weekly praised the book for its passionate and meticulous writing, calling it "a love letter to a bygone era and the ships that once dominated the seas."
The book chronicles the life of William Francis Gibbs, deemed America's preeminent naval architect, whose ambition to construct the most elegant, swiftest, and most magnificent ocean liner enthralled the nation.
Gibbs was regarded as a peer of Frank Lloyd Wright.
The presence of the author, along with a participant who had sailed on the SS United States in 1961, enriched the discussion, bringing to life the ingenuity and ambition of the era, and fostering even greater admiration for the architect who overcame personal adversity.
This typewriter believes in preserving history, for our nation's direction is unclear if we do not comprehend our origins.
The youth of today show scant interest in the historical visions that forged our greatness. Consequently, one example is that we might lose the S.S. United States to the scrapheap and with it the story of a visionary creator and a ship that transformed travel in a post-World War II era.
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