"They cry when they bring them in"

I'm surprised by my own emotional response to the old typewriters we saw while doing this project. But then, as one of our sources said, his customers "cry when they bring them in" and say "take care of my baby."

My own old typewriter is a 1972 Smith Corona portable electric, an eighth-grade graduation present. It's got an Elvis Costello sticker on the case (first U.S. tour) and a chewed-up cord (I kept closing the case on it). It's in the basement right now, but I still miss it occasionally -- I typed all my college term papers and several issues of a poetry 'Zine on it.

When I went to J-school in 1985, my mom gave me one of her Osborne portable computers. Since then, I've used a series of Dell desktops and am now on a Macbook. I tend to agree, however, with whoever said that typing gave you time to think about your writing. Maybe I'll take the old Smith Corona over to Berkeley typewriter.