Typewriters: The End of an Era!

       Let me introduce you to the typwriter perched on the left.  It's my grandmother's old Royal typewriter from her and my grandaddy's home office.  He sold insurance and my grandmother acted as his secretary from their home office.  I remember her tap-tappity-tapping on the Royal. What a glorious sound!  It made me want to type too!  So Nanu (that's what we called her) would put a piece of paper (sometimes with carbon and a 2nd sheet - I was a lucky girl!) in and let me tippity-tap away...young and unable to really type, I pretended that I was writing stories!

       The old Royal now sits retired and tired on a bookcase in my living room, but it drips fresh memories of my grandparent's home office and my first forays into writing.  I'm sure many of you around my age also have memories of your first experience with an actual typewriter.  I remember one of my first real jobs where I used an IBM Selectric typewriter - such a long way from the old Royal.  I was super excited when my boss ordered me an IBM Selectric II (because it had a correction button)!!!

       When the actual computer came out, it was truly remarkable that we'd ever made do with typewriters.  However, without the typewriter, we'd never have graduated to computers! YEA!

       It is with all this in mind that I salute the typewriter, for it deserves our respect and a place of honor in history.  One day ago, according to Yahoo, Google and all the rest, the last typewriter rolled off the assembly line as the "last standing typewriter factory in the world, Godrej and Boyce, is closing its plant in Mumbai, India."  I found on the Huffington Post this morning, however, that typewriters are still be ing made.  According to the Huff, "Contrary to previous accounts, it seems that the typewriters are still rolling off of assembly lines. According to an interview Minyanville conducted with an employee at Swintec, a typewriter maker, the company is still making the devices.  Minyanville writes, However, as ubiquitous as iPads (and, to a lesser extent, Xooms and PlayBooks) may be, the typewriter is "far from dead," Ed Michael, General Manager of Sales at Moonachie, NJ-based Swintec, tells us. And he adds [Godrej] and Boyce is far from the last company in the world making the machines.  "We have manufacturers making typewriters for us in China, Japan, Indonesia," Michael says.

       Regardless of whether a few are actually still in production or not - it is the end of an era!  The computer, iPad, and everything else that will pop up in the near future as modern day contraptions to make our life easier, will prevail.  So, while I'm a bit of a modern-day-gadget-gal -- also known as a tech or gadget junkie -- I feel nostalgic for that old Royal...and the IBM Selectric II as well. 

Farewell, I will forget thee not, typewriter!  For you first lit the fire in my soul that made me want to run my fingers quickly over a keyboard, tippity-tapping out a story and finding such satisfaction in the clippity-clapping of those keys across a blank page. 

*heart*  Ciao for Niao - Texas Playwright Chick