I was about to hit publish on the first entry of a new Paper Blogging series, Typewriter Diaries, when the phone rang. It was Tom Furrier, our marvelous typewriter repairman, and owner of Cambridge Typewriter.
WBZ-TV, a local Boston CBS news station, wanted to do a feature on typewriter use during the pandemic. They had just arranged to meet Tom Furrier at his shop on the following day, and now Tom had a question. Would my daughter, Abigail, like to be part of the interview?
Yes, she said, she’d be ‘super-duper nervous’ but she would do it.
The Adventure Starts with Getting There
We changed our plans for the next day, a flexible homeschool schedule once again having unintended benefits.
Then fending off attempts to tow our car by the city because in our excitement we’d forgotten it was street cleaning day, we went. Actually, my daughter was the one who ran outside and vehemently persuaded the tow truck driver into not towing our only means of getting to the interview, which itself took some courage.
“The interview will be easy, after that,” she chuckled.
A Typewritten Youth
Abigail had been a regular visitor to Cambridge Typewriter since I bought her a machine for her 11th birthday, a few months after I had bought my first typewriter there.
Typewriters helped shape her next few years. She became a regular contributor to Teen Typewriter Poetry events at Newton Library, and a year ago, using the typewriters in our home, she fulfilled a long-held desire to start an analog quarterly magazine.
Modeled on Cricket, the literary magazine for children founded in the '70s by Blouke and Marianne Carus, Abigail started The Letterbox with a twelve-page first issue. We scanned and printed the typed and hand-drawn pages. These we machine-stitched and distributed by mail. Over the year, each issue grew in subscribers and size, reaching its current twenty pages.
Last summer Abigail published her own interview with Tom. And now, magazine in hand, she was headed for the shop and an interview moment of her own.
A Two-Hour Process
We arrived at Cambridge Typewriter as Tom enthusiastically answered questions put to him by Emmy-award winning news anchor, David Wade.
David Wade and his cameraman, and the cameraman’s bulky equipment, stayed for about two hours and it was fascinating to watch them develop the story for the resulting piece that featured on the 6:00 o’clock evening news five days later.
David Wade was a delightfully encouraging interviewer. Tom’s apprentice diligently cleans a machine in the background. On the far right, the camera viewfinder shows what will appear on-screen.
That is the Hermes Ambassador machine I was picking up from its cleaning and repair. It came in handy for some of the shots.
[Click on any image to see it full screen.]
As the cameraman filmed Abigail typing, Tom points out the intricacies of a Chinese typewriter with its tray of over 1,000 characters.
David Wade of WBZ-TV interviews Tom Furrier in the Cambridge Typewriter store. Tom moved sixty machines out to make space and it was still a juggle of people and equipment!
As David Wade and his cameraman work on their outside shots (here, holding Abigail’s magazine!), Tom and I put the Ambassador typewriter and one other machine in my car. Because the work of a typewriter store goes on, regardless.
I paid Tom for the Ambassador overhaul as David Wade shot one take after another with the same script outside on the sidewalk; someone dropped off an IBM Selectric and a couple who’d driven from Vermont to see the store came in, wide-eyed to see their favorite news anchor there, agog at all the machines, and full of stories of their own.
The Interviewer Catches the Typewriter Bug
Between sequences, David Wade continually checked out the shelves of typewriters for sale. We had speculated on the way there about whether he’d buy a machine.
After years of TV and newspaper interviews, Tom said David is the only newsperson who has followed up their enthusiastic statements with actually buying a typewriter.
“And here’s how it works …”
Finally, the Piece Aired
When the feature finally aired, Abigail found that waiting to see how the interview turned out was more nerve-wracking than actually doing it.
It was fascinating to see how much was left on the metaphorical cutting room floor by the editor who themselves had not participated in the interview. For my daughter, that in itself was a learning experience.
And without further ado, here is the feature as it appeared on Boston television.
The Aftermath
While most of the work of the shop is customer repairs, machines for sale are on the shelves on the right. Since the piece aired, they are now heading to all parts of the country.
That week, the piece was picked up by CBS affiliates around the country and Tom began getting calls from interested typewriter buyers who had just seen the feature—in Texas, Minnesota, Utah, and other far-flung states, to all of which typewriters are now winging.
Then at the weekend, the typewriter piece was on national CBS Evening News.
David Wade was happy because he enjoyed making the feature, now owns a typewriter, and fulfilled a bucket list item of having a piece go national.
Tom was happy because the story of what he does was treated sympathetically and also typewriters are flying off the shelves.
And we were happy to be a part of the process and also for another notch of bravery to become a part of yet another of my children’s stories, for whom taking reasonable risks is one of my highest goals.
Know Before You Go
Cambridge Typewriter is at 102 Massachusetts Ave, Arlington, MA 02474
Call before you go: (781) 643-7010
Update
After the feature aired nationally, a viewer from Michigan called the store to ask about the lovely little typewriter David Wade uses outside on the bench. Was it available? The viewer especially liked the sound.
Yes, it was! They bought it over the phone. Once the machine arrived, they messaged the shop to say how much they loved it and to say they have named it … ‘Abigail’ …