Updating the Blog

Untitled, originally uploaded by edrahe.

I have a degree in Journalism, but I don't really like to write. That itself is probably a good reason I don't work for a major media outlet, except for this blog. I think it is obvious I don't like writing for fun, evidence by my very infrequent blog updates.  Yet it does not stop me from saying a word or two about my manual typewriter collection.

While I don't like to write that much anymore it is in a way ironic  that the major subject of my writing these days is... obituaries. One might think that there's nothing to writing a good obituary and that would be a good job for a cub reporter. I can tell readers from experience at my first newspaper job I was not allowed to even think about writing obituaries. No sir, at that newspaper obituaries were serious and important news, and sometimes the only news in a particular week's edition. This was not a job to be left to a cub reporter. Anyone who has worked for a rural weekly newspaper anywhere in the U.S. with a readership base of Lutheran farmers  understands this. Eventually I was allowed to write the obituaries at the newspaper and that is how I learned how everyone was related to everyone in our end of the universe. Now I'm a funeral director and I still have to write a lot of the obituaries. I would say I'm pretty good at it now. Not bragging.

But I digress. The old tools of the trade have always fascinated me. Just like my affinity for a good old John Deere two-cylinder tractor I admire Linotype machines, old printing presses and old cameras.

Most news back in the day was written on manual typewriters, edited and handed to a Linotype operator for composition. I have in my collection three manual typewriters that I figure in this day and age might come in handy during the apocalypse if I have to write a letter or something. I don't know why I'd need to write a letter during the apocalypse, but who knows what will happen then. I learned how to type in school on a manual typewriter. Typing, now that's something I can do. I was once clocked at 60 wpm, which is on the slow side, but for my purposes that's about the right speed. One cannot rush an obituary.

This article recently appeared in our hometown newspaper about the growing popularity of manual typewriters among young writers. I have tried to write something on my manual typewriters, but since I don't really like to write, not much has come of it. During my recent medical sabbatical I had my wife go in the basement to dig out one of my old machines. Maybe I would pass the days laid up at home writing a novel or something, on a manual typewriter. Didn't happen. Nor did I ever update my blog when I had a lot of time on my hands. Just wasn't interested.

Then a few days ago something magical happened. I remembered telling my wife a funny incident that happened when I was a young boy growing up on the farm. Soon thereafter I was in the man cave and thought I'd write down the incident and what the heck, I'll use my typewriter. So I wrote up the incident. It was more like a news brief. And then I wrote another and then another. So now I've started writing my memoirs on a manual typewriter, and it is kind of fun. And a manual typewriter seems like a great thing to use to write them down.

I knew I kept those things for a reason.