....so I've done old typewriter stories at least three times. Once at APT, once on the radio (WBHM Birmingham) and again, at CBS-8. That's despite the fact that I haven't actually used a typewriter in many. many years. So I was saddened to hear a report on the way in to work this morning on The BBC about the last typewriter manufacturing company in the world shutting its doors. Chief Executive Editor Jay (a typewriter kinda guy if ever I knew one) reminded me of the story with an email this afternoon. I think he somehow typed the email on an old Blickensderfer.
The PC killed typewriters a long time ago, but a factory in India was still cranking electrics out. No more.
Why do we care? Did anyone mourn the closing of the last horseshoe factory? The last wagon wheel company? It is the romance of old typewriters that gives them special status? The image of the solitary writer pounding away on the Great American Novel?
I'm willing to bet there will still be old heavy Remingtons being sold in yard sales for a long time to come. Sure, the keys break every now and then, but they're tough little machines. And when the power is out, and the last chapter of that GAN is screaming to get out....your PC will sit quietly in the corner gatering dust, while the manual will almost burn the words onto the pages, letting you rip them out to toss on the pile on your old wooden rolltop desk......
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