Not My "Type"

Last Sunday, on CBS Sunday Morning, Bill Geist reported on “A Typewriter Renaissance,” a resurgence in the popularity of typewriters mostly with young people who obviously don’t know any better.  One 27-year-old in the typewriter repair shop that Geist found in Mesa, Arizona had just purchased a Smith Corona typewriter (that came with its own carrying case) at Goodwill for $7.99.  She explained that she enjoyed the fact that you can see the words in front of you as you type them when you use a typewriter.

“Isn’t that what you can do with a computer?” asked Bill.  He took the words right out of my mouth.

Some of the typewriter aficionados interviewed for the story had other cockamamie rationales for their appeal.  For instance, typing on a typewriter is more of a craft because you have to get it right the first time you type as there is no going back to correct it.  Here, all this time, I thought that this was the typewriter’s hamartia, its fatal flaw.

One teacher was subjecting his high school students (many of whom had never seen one before) to using typewriters on the premise that it made them better writers because they had to really THINK before they put their words down on paper.  Huh.  I thought a really good writer is one who hones his or her work after the first draft - you know, the way you can when you write on a computer.

Another typist was waxing poetic about the feeling of returning the carriage, and the “dinging” sound it makes and the sensual nature of the keys beneath your fingers.  I’ll bet you anything you can buy a computer app that will simulate that experience for you.

I remember typewriters.  My family owned a heavy black Underwood manual typewriter when I was growing up.  I’m going to reveal something about myself to you now. I can’t type.  Never could.  Don’t tell anyone though, because I type for a living.

When I took a Typing class in high school, I was doing just fine until about halfway through the year when they suddenly thought we should type fast, as well as accurately.  That simply wasn’t happening for me.  Wite-Out became my best friend, but you had to realize you had made the mistake before you could correct it.  I cannot even begin to count the number of sheets of paper that I had to scrap in the quest to produce an error-free document.  Talk about killing trees.

I was delighted when the electric typewriter became more popular.  I had an enormous one at work that actually had a self-correcting tape built into it.  That made it easier and much less messy to correct my mistakes, but didn’t reduce the number of mistakes I made in the first place.

Then a miracle happened.  I discovered that someone had invented a wonderful new contraption called the word processor, and my life changed forever.  Much to my astonishment, I realized that on a word processor I could save, copy, delete and edit text!  My memory is not what it used to be, but I do think I may have wept for joy that day.  I got one the following Christmas – pretty much like a typewriter in a monitor box.  I could now make mistakes and…wait for it…fix them later.  I could save whole documents for all eternity. From the word processor it was an easy leap to computers, even this one that is sitting on my lap right now.

So I would no sooner trade in my computer for a typewriter than I would trade in my car for a horse and carriage, or trade in my washing machine for a rock by the river.

My friend Jeanne has the right idea – to celebrate the typewriter, she finds and buys old ones and makes the keys into very cool and unique jewelry.  Check out all her jewelry (which is made from recycled and found materials) at http://www.juNxtaposition.com.