Typewriters

I saw a story on CBS' “Sunday Morning” this week that typewriters may be making a comeback. At least among the nostalgic and the curious.

I gave away my last typewriter just recently to a neighbor who thought her son might find it helpful. It was an electric job that I bought when I went into business, thinking I'd need it to address envelopes. Then I discovered you could do that on the PC. So much for the typewriter.

My first typewriter was a Royal portable my parents bought for me when I entered high school. They knew I liked to write and wanted to be a reporter. It came with instructions to teach you touch-typing but I never could master that art. I got as far as positioning my hands on the keyboard and then just trusted to luck.

In college and in several professional newsrooms thereafter, I pounded many a different typewriter. The upright Underwood was fun and harked back to old-time newsrooms glamorized in movies like “The Front Page.” There were plenty of Royals as well but the workhorse of the newsroom was the Remington Rand.

Pounding was the operative word for newsroom typewriters in those day. Editors needed multiple copies of every story so carbon paper was inserted between three sheets of paper. You had to hit those keys hard to make the bottom copy legible. I don't know if you can even buy carbon paper today.

I never liked electric typewriters. I found the touch too light. Not being a touch-typist my fingers sometimes slipped between two letters. One of two annoying things would happen. The typewriter jammed or two letters hit the paper. In either case it required correcting.

Word-processing is another world. I still can't touch-type but the keyboard is easy on the fingers and the screen shows my work and I can go back and edit on the fly, which I always do.

As a former copy editor I have a thing about typos, misspelled words and other common errors. I have to fix them before I can continue to the next sentence. It slows me down some when I'm on a roll but I do it anyway.

What I remember most about writing on a typewriter is that when you made a mistake the only thing you could do was rip the paper out of the machine, throw it away and start all over again.

In that respect, at least, the modern world has made muddling a lot simpler.

-30-