Brian Says Goodbye To The Typewriter

You think the Maytag repair man is lonely? Try being a typewriter manufacturer. When was the last time you sat down and typed on a real typewriter? I remember how cool I felt when I would come to work with my very own typewriter in its own carrying case. I felt like Minnesota Fats walking into a pool hall.

I used to go through so many of those little white plastic correcting sheets that you put over your mistake and hit the keys to cover it with white goo. My reports used to look like my dad’s face after shaving with toilet paper pieces all over it. The typewriter has become as obsolete as carbon paper, black and white TV’s and VHS tapes, in fact the manufacturing of typewriters has just become as dead as Latin. Godrej and Boyce in Mumbai, India was the last place still making them and they have just closed the doors.

While typewriters became archaic here years ago they were still common in India until recently. In the early 90’s they were selling 50,000 a year, last year they sold 800. I still have mine and will keep it until Mike and Frank from American Pickers come by and make me an offer. The biggest concern I have with the disappearance of the typewriter is trying to figure out what torture older brothers will put their younger siblings through now. I can remember being held down and getting poked in the chest repeatedly by my older brother while he shouted “TYPEWRITER”. What will they do now? Hold you down and shout “WORD PROCESSOR” or “CHEST TEXT”? Good luck older brothers and sisters. Let me know what you come up with.