Typewriter repairman is one of the last - "If I need help or advice, I'm on my own"

[Liberal_in_LA]

Typewriter repairman is one of the last
'If I need help or advice, I'm on my own'

Updated: Monday, 20 Sep 2010, 8:42 AM EDT


LAURI HARVEY KEAGLE
CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) - Al Stuckey is a dying breed.

"I'm absolutely a dinosaur," the Crown Point man said.

As far as he and any of his customers know, he's the only typewriter repairman left in Northwest Indiana. The Chicago native runs Crown Point Office Machines from his home, with a tiny shop in his garage. He repairs other office machines, too — fax machines, computer printers — but it's the typewriters that make him stand out.

"A couple of years ago on Channel 11, they had a guy on an interview in Chicago who claimed to be the last typewriter repairman in the Midwest," Stuckey said. "I wrote his name down because I wanted to call him and tell him he wasn't alone."

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Stuckey said he remembers when the IBM Selectric was all the rage in the 1980s. He still works on them more than any other typewriter.

"Anybody that deals with a lot of forms that are not all under their control and that they can't get on a computer still use typewriters," he said.

That is precisely the case for the registrar's office at Valparaiso University, where Becky Strain serves as office manager.

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"It was such a relief to find Al," Strain said. "I researched on the Internet to find him, and I sent a campuswide e-mail to the other departments to let everyone know he's there if they need him. He's wonderful."

Stuckey said he is seeing fewer and fewer calls for repairs, saying we've become more of a "throw-away society" fueled by the equipment manufacturers.

http://www.wwlp.com/dpps/news/strange/typewriter-repairman-in-ind-is-one-of-the-last-ob10-jgr_3585694

[Skittles]

1. oh, the IBM Selectic

anyone who had pounded the keys of a manual typewriter thought Selectrics were the second coming :D

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. LOL. Yep, I remember when they were shiny and new.

We still have some about.

[derby378]

4. My wife might have one somewhere in her effects

I really should check.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. I wonder how much they weigh. They look heavy as heck. Made super solid.

[Skittles]

6. they were pretty heavy!

but then, so were manual typewriters! :D

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. Nothings made that heavy anymore and nothing lasts.

[joeybee12]

16. Ah, memories...

like the corners of my mind!

[rfranklin]

3. The one with the correction tape was the best...

Ther were fights in the office over those babies!

[AwakeAtLast]

12. I still remember my typing teacher say

"Remember, DO NOT touch the correction key!"

Every day.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

20. I love the key action and sound --

of a Selectric! :loveya: I still do envelopes and such on one -- I wouldn't have it any other way.

[laughingliberal]

25. The exact model I learned to type on! nt

[valerief]

8. What's a typewriter?

:rofl:

[Jamastiene]

27. A huge heavy machine that made typing

hurt. It was a nightmare. You had to practically pound those keys with some major PSI to get the little hockey stick shaped doohickey to strike the paper. Heaven forbid you make a typo. That could take several minutes of shaking, dabbing, and blowing to make the White Out dry.

Then, at the end of every line on the page, you had to manually pull this arm thing to the left to drag the whole entire top of the typewriter back over. That was just to reposition the keys on the left hand side of the next line.

The ink was a ribbon thing on a spool. You had to rewind the thing manually by rolling and rolling and rolling it. Then, you had to take a shower and change clothes, because you were covered in ink. People went around wearing ink stained clothes until they could afford to save up for new clothes. No amount of laundry detergent would ever get the ink out.

Then, on your next pass through re-using the ribbon, you started to see the print on the page get lighter and lighter as the last letters that had been typed on the ribbon during its first go 'round had used some of that ink. So, it just continued to get harder and harder to read.

Heaven help you if you accidentally hit two keys that were close to each other at once. You would need pliers, a screwdriver, a flashlight, AND to hold your tongue right to get them unjammed from each other.

Never mind the fact that getting the paper straight, when you manually rolled it in, was damn near impossible.

And don't get me started on setting the margins. That was a freaking experiment in patience and dexterity. I swear the only way I could get the margins set on my mother's old typewriter was to stand on my head and set them.

It was a nightmare.

[Cal Carpenter]

28. I laughed so loud at your post

my dog looked at me funny :D

[FirstLight]

9. ahhhh....memories

typing class, mandatory in jr high.

being asked to type something for a job interview

almost makes me pine for those old safegfuard ledgers and cards with the carbon paper...

wow...i'm freaking old!

[4_TN_TITANS]

13. Typing class - the best high school class I ever took.

Seriously. Back then lots of people considered it a woman/secretary class or nerdy but man what a jump out of the gate typing gave me. I can still crank out about 60 wpm.

[madmom]

15. I made my kids take typing in school, before computers class was the norm. They both

thanked me profusely after and still.

[shanti]

18. aaa sss ddd fff

yeah, i remember it too!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

26. asdfg hjklç asdfg hjklç asdfg hjklç asdfg hjklç asdfg hjklç asdfg hjklç

qwert yuiop qwert yuiop qwert yuiop qwert yuiop qwert yuiop
qwert yuiop 
zxcvb nm,.: zxcvb nm,.: zxcvb nm,.: zxcvb nm,.: zxcvb nm,.:
zxcvb nm,.:

[Hannah Bell]

21. when i was young some old male chauvinist advised me to learn to type. i was offended at the time -

but it was good advice. being able to do 50-60 wpm at that time *was* an advantage in the job market.

[Elwood P Dowd]

22. I took typing in high school back in 1962. Remember those ole' manual things?

I think there were only three of us guys in the class, and I took some kidding from my buddies on the football team. Now those guys hunt and peck on their computers, and I give them the kidding.

[starroute]

10. They were already a dying breed 20 years ago

Back then, you could still find some old guy who'd spent 40 years working for IBM and was making a little money in his retirement by fixing Selectrics, but they're presumably all retired for real by now.

I don't think it's so much that we're a throw-away society -- the woods are full of people fixing computers out of their garages. But the typewriter is dead tech.

[Canuckistanian]

11. Wow, what irony

Using the Internet to find a typewriter repair man.

I still own a typewriter - a manual, portable Smith-Corona with the futuristic cartridge ribbons. Still have some spare ribbons and correction cartridges, too!

[truebrit71]

14. Is he related to Bicycle Repair Man in any way?

[True Earthling]

17. I used to be a typewriter repairman...

Selectrics were my specialty. Also Smith Corona. Did it for 20 years but moved up the ladder into management in 1990.

Thanks for the post.

[HuckleB]

19. K & R.

[csziggy]

23. Good reason - typewriters sucked

The week after I got my first word processing program I gave away my IBM Selectric and have never regretted it.

Hubby still has the portable typewriter his parents got him to take off for college. The ribbon is dried out (has bee for twenty years) and the thing is a boat anchor, but he won't get rid of it.

I learned to type on one of these:


Dad inherited it from his Mom who bought it new.

Then Mom found one similar to this and gave it to me for my own:


Learning to type on one of those old machines was good preparation for typing into a word processing program on an Apple II. With either technology, it was easy to type faster than the machine could handle. On those old typewriters, the arms holding the letters would get tangled; on the Apple II I'd fill the RAM faster than it could write the ASCII to the 360k floppy. Either way, I could take a break to think about my next words!

[Javaman]

24. "Throw away society"...not just for typewriters. nt