This piece in the NY Times made me wistful for a time gone by...<*Nostalgia Alert!*>
Click, Clack, Ding! Sigh....

I don't remember exactly how old I was when I got my first manual typewriter. I'm pretty sure it was a gift from my Aunt Mary, who was my legal guardian, and I think it was in middle school. My Uncle Keith had bought me a "learn-to-type" book and I spent hours clacking away at the keys. It was my prized possession. I loved that thing. I spent hours clacking away at the keys. I can still smell what it smelled like, which basically was the smell of the toner ribbon.  I loved that smell.  Looking back, I wonder if it had the same kind of effect as sniffing old school magic markers (which I also loved!  'Splains a lot about me now, huh?)

And the sounds.  The rhythmic clacking.  The ding of the carriage when it reached the end of the line. It used to drive my older brother nuts, which at the time was a huge plus.

Hours of my youth were spent sitting at the dining room table with my typewriter, planning out and creating many fictional stories and teen romances.  I had a close circle of friends who were into creative writing like me, and we'd share stories back and forth. 

I think I was lucky to have grown up with the typewriter.  Today, anyone can just sit down and start writing, without a lot of forethought (example - this blog!).  It is easy to rearrange paragraphs, delete entire pages, change layout, etc.  If writing a research paper, you can type it out in pieces and later construct it into one coherently flowing narrative.  Back then, if you had thoughts out of order, you had to retype what sometimes were entire pages of text to make the corrections.  Simple typos required the use of white correction film or liquid.  Or the use of the strike-through.  If  you got caught  up in your thoughts and didn't pay attention, you'd find yourself running right over the bottom margin and ruining an entire page.  If you typed too fast, the little strike bars would get tangled up.  A person sitting in front of the typewriter had to really think about what they were putting down on the paper before they even touched a single key.  
And how beautiful of a machine they can be.  My first one had shiny black keys and a cool metal casing.  It had a black plastic cover with a handle that snapped onto it that held all of my important papers inside.  It looked sort of like this:

I wish I still had it. My aunt eventually upgraded me to an electric typewriter, and who knows what happened to my old friend.  How stupid of me to let it go!

I've always wanted to buy a vintage typewriter, like one of the gorgeous old Underwoods.  But look at these two beauties:

I've always felt a special affinity with the typewriter because of the TAB key (one of my nicknames).  I remember Speedwriting (a type of shorthand) class in high school.  It was held in the same room as the typing class, so each desk had a typewriter.  My best friend Mike used to sit behind me and say stuff like "I keep pressing the TAB key, but she's not answering me!"  Good times.

At Home and Planet in Bethlehem, I bought a pair of great TAB STOP SET key earrings.  I want to buy a necklace like this one from etsy:

It is amazing how far we have come, in such a relatively short amount of time.  From typing away on blank sheets of paper, to coding incredibly gorgeous dynamic web pages, the speed of technology is truly a wonder.  While we embrace and marvel at the new, though, it is still possible to celebrate the old. 

So, according to the NY Times article, does this make me a hipster?  And is that good or bad?  I haven't decided about either.  ; )

In case you care to read more:

A bit of typewriter history