HALP! My Computer Is Working Again, And It's Controlling My Mind By Passing Alien Space Thought-Forms Into My Fingertips Via The Keyboard

OK this is getting stupid.  I left my computer open, I did not close the lid, and I went rampaging into Bellingham a few hours ago to purchase a new computer because this one was fuckin' with me.  And it is an antique; but it's been a good old gal.  When it started playing up I was bummed.  I can hammer away on this and feel that keystrike, like on an old IBM Selectric, that length of throw that I like.  But no more, no, 'tis not to be, as it lay gasping its last in throes of mortal computation, failing, the bloom fading from it's cheeks now so pale....

It's working now.  Perfectly.  Apparently the key is NOT CLOSING THE COVER.
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I like going through the Internet Archive and looking at old periodicals and obscure, funky things, and I found something that just about stopped my heart.  I mentioned that my grandmother had a display garden. She owned these t - well just read this.  It won't take long.

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From 'Brief History of Early Horticulture in Oregon'

In the summer of 1847, Mr. Henderson Luelling/ of 
Iowa, brought across the plains several hundred yearling 
grafted sprouts — apple, pear, cherry, plum, prune, peach, 
grape, and berries — a full assortment of all the fruits grown 
in the then far West. These were placed in soil in two 
large boxes, made to fit into a wagon bed, and carefully 
watered and tended on the long and hazardous six-months' 
journey with an ox team, thousands of miles to the banks of 
the Willamette just north of the little townsite of Milwaukie, 
Clackamas County. 

Here a little patch in the dense fir forest was cleared 
away with great labor and expense, and the first Oregon 
orchard was set that autumn with portent more signifi- 
cant for the luxury and civilization of this country, than 
any laden ship that ever entered the mouth of the Co- 
lumbia. A fellow traveler, William Meek, had also brought 
a sack of apple seed and a few grafted trees ; a partnershi
was formed and the firm of Luelling & Meek started the 
first nursery in 1848. Roots from seedling apples planted 
at Oregon City and on French Prairie, and sprouts from 
the wild cherry of the vicinity, and wild plum roots 
brought in from Rogue River Valley, furnished the first 
stock.

 My grandmother grew those trees and plants in her garden!  I walked to the Seth Lewelling Grammar School every day, on the site of his old nursery!  All the properties around this 'little patch in the dense fir forest', which went on to be my neighborhood, had his apple trees, fruit trees, the concord grapes, everything!  My grandmother was related to William Meek! OMG I am absolutely trippin' here.  My uncle, a few blocks away, owned the very first commercially sold Bing Cherry tree, and it was still growing and still producing huge, deep red cherries 100 years later.  My grandparents knew Seth, William and Henderson, and Mr. Bing too.

This absolutely blows my mind.  All my grandmothers' apple and plums, her concord grape, were first sets bought from that nursery!  I can go on Google Maps and see those trees still growing and producing fruit around my grandmothers' house!  I grew up under those trees, making cider from that fruit, and sneaking that applejack in the winter, spreading that grape jelly on my toast.  

This might not sound like much, but to someone with a tenuous history like me, it's like proof that at least what I heard from my grandmother was true.  And it stayed true.  It's still true. 

The author proceeds to go on at length about his trials with the plum tree and selling fruit.  I don't know what he was doing wrong; the things form thickets where I lived in Milwaukie and are hardy as hell.  I had so goddamn many of those plums thrown at me as a kid that I still can't stand the smell of them. We had a huge old specimen on the corner of our property that all us kids merrily climbed, nailed stuff onto, swung from and peed next to.  It was enormous, about the size of a small house, and hung down to the ground all around like a dome, and the fruit was so thick on that thing that the hornets would take it over in August; you couldn't get near the tree. 

That plum tree was just a switch when my uncle planted it at the corner of his property and my grandfathers.  He had a little landing strip there, and the old stick and dope airplanes would park there and the pilots would pick those plums to eat as snacks. That outfit was long gone by the time I came along.  It was all suburbs. But occasionally a big piece of cast concrete would pop up as proof of the old strip and the little office with the plum tree next to it that had been there in the 1920's.
This is so cool.  I'm outta here. Gotta read up about pioneer gardening.