Since I posted my little piece on my treasured 1936 Royal Deluxe, typewriters have popped up everywhere. For example, my very cool sister in Louisville reported that a friend of hers (an antiques guru) mentioned that typewriters are a very hot commodity right now.
Within a few days of that comment, my cousin Barbara in Kansas City (Barbara grew up with the massive typewriter I so loved as a child) sent a clipping from The New York Times in which Tom Hanks wrote on his love affair with the hundreds of vintage typewriters he has collected over the years. By the way, Tom uses his typewriters nearly every day. He even types his thank-you notes. I had thought typing thank-you notes was gauche, but if Tom does it, I'm on board.
Finally, the oft-quoted Wall Street Journal ran an article last week detailing how a few typewriter manufacturers still eke out a living producing typewriters for a scattering of governmental entities that require certain forms be handwritten or typed. Apparently, they don't lend themselves well to computer programming or PDF or some such nonsense. Items mentioned were Search Warrants in various locales, Marriage Licenses in Jersey City, and Death Certificates in West Virginia. It's a niche product.
But, in an even niche-ier way, the Texas Prison System is using typewriters within its prisons that are transparent. A manufacturer designed a transparent manual typewriter specifically for prisoners who might be writing The Great American Novel or, more likely, working on their law degrees. Those $250.00 transparent typewriters pretty much negate the contraband issue.
I announced to my socially savvy children that considering the sudden popularity of typewriters after my post, I thought I might be trending. It was extremely exciting to be trending at my age. Sadly, they brought to my attention that even though I was a relatively trendy grandmother, it was the typewriters that were trending, not me.
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