Ron the Yarn Spinner

 

The Striking Facts

 

 

 “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-

Only this, and nothing more, or maybe it was the guy on the

typewriter next door?”

 

It was called the "Sholes & Glidden Typewriter," and gunmakers E. Remington & Sons in Ilion, NY made it. It was not a big seller at first, but it sure made office work less boring, and it all started in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Christopher Sholes liked to tinker, and he envisioned a machine that would automatically number the pages in books he published. One of his friends suggested he might shoot higher and challenged him to produce a machine to print the entire alphabet. Sholes made a simple device:  a piece of printer's type mounted on a little rod, mounted to strike on to a flat plate which would hold a piece of carbon paper sandwiched with a sheet of paper. A strike of this type would produce an impression on the paper.

Sholes cannibalized an old telegraph straight key, and when he would tap down on his device with the key, the little type jumped up to hit the carbon & paper against the glass plate. There was nothing fancy here, no spacing, shift key, etc. All that came later. The idea that type striking against paper to produce an image was new. Sholes showed how it could work and he patented a machine that could manage the whole alphabet. Point proven, however, Sholes eventually sold his rights to the device, (Maybe he got bored?) and Remington agreed to make upgraded models of the Typewriter.

Now the original was decorated with colorful decals and gold paint. (To make it more appealing to women.) There was a foot treadle for the carriage return but a later model replaced it with a side handle. It used the QWERTY keyboard familiar to us today, however, you typed like you were shouting in an email message. It was ALL IN-CAPITAL LETTERS. Improvements included upper- and lower-case letters and a plain black open frame characterizing the open-black-box typewriter look. And until the PC-based word processor came around in the 1980s, the cacophony of typewriter keys tapping from desktops filled offices and businesses everywhere, including the lobbies  of banks where I worked. I can still hear them; perhaps you can as well.

So  (“Sniff”) ……gone are the typewriters like VHS, Walkman’s, portable TVs, the car cigarette lighter, vent windows and fender skirts on automobiles, right?

No – afraid not. Two premiere companies make them today for those who prefer the tactile feedback of typewriters. These companies cater to folks who champion the focus and intentionality these machines demand, making every word typed feel more deliberate and meaningful. To understand this…..I have a friend who loves photography and while he has digital equipment, he prefers film. He says with film, you must concentrate . “You only get one chance.”

In an age where screen fatigue is a genuine concern, typewriters offer a refreshing break. They transport writers into space -   a space devoid of digital distractions, notifications, and constant multitasking, emphasizing the exact purity* of the writing process. Embracing the past while forging ahead, the companies Royal and Nakajima stand as  testaments to the timeless elegance of typewriting like the way Sailor, Parker, and Montblanc provide the aesthetic appeal of high-quality fountain pens to those yearning for a traditionalist’s writing experience.  Here are a few of them:

 

Queen Eliabeth (Preferred Parker)

Oprah Winfrey

Barack Obama

George H.W. Bush

Prince Charles

Howard Stern

Captain Jack Sparrow*  

*Better known as Johnny Depp, Johnny .He owns a small village in the South of France near St. Tropez. Go there and you might see Johnny seated near a window in his home, fountain pen, journal, and his Nakajima  typewriter nearby.