{"id":2258,"date":"2010-11-15T16:44:22","date_gmt":"2010-11-15T21:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/?p=2258"},"modified":"2010-11-15T16:44:22","modified_gmt":"2010-11-15T21:44:22","slug":"typewriters-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/?p=2258","title":{"rendered":"Typewriters rule!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Before computers came along, no possession was more important to me than my typewriter. I have been fascinated with typewriters — or anything with keyboards, really — for my entire life. I got my first typewriter when I was about 10 years old. My father even had an old touch-typing textbook, so I taught myself to type correctly right from the start.<\/p>\n

In the 1980s, after I had computers and printers, I got rid of my typewriter. But I always longed for an IBM Selectric, particulary a Selectric III. The Selectric III was the very pinnacle of typewriter technology. I finally acquired one in 1997. The San Francisco Examiner had a whole pile of them abandoned in the basement, so I rescued a Selectric III. It worked pretty well for a while, but eventually, unless they’re kept oiled and maintained, Selectrics get sticky and stop working. Mine needed to be soaked in a bath of cleaning solvent, then put back together, lubricated, and adjusted. It was a splurge, but I finally got this work done. My Selectric III is now working like new.<\/p>\n

The work was done by Bert at Executive Business Machines in Winston-Salem. Bert has been repairing typewriters for 65 years. He got started with IBM Selectrics in the 1960s, when he took an IBM class on Selectric repair. I also found out from Bert that he used to repair typewriters for the Winston-Salem Journal. That’s the newspaper where I got my first job and where I worked until I moved to San Francisco in 1991. So, without knowing it, I’ve been using typewriters maintained by Bert since 1966, when I first went to the Winston-Salem Journal as a weekend copy boy.<\/p>\n

I’ve been thinking that there ought to be typewriter clubs these days — for people who still have and use typewriters and who send each other typewritten notes in the mail just for the heck of it.<\/p>\n

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\nBert with my newly reconditioned Selectric III<\/em><\/p>\n

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Before computers came along, no possession was more important to me than my typewriter. I have been fascinated with typewriters — or anything with keyboards, really — for my entire life. I got my first typewriter when I was about 10 years old. My father even had an old touch-typing textbook, so I taught myself … Continue reading “Typewriters rule!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","category-the-way-we-were"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}