For all of you Luddites out there (In response to the assertion by the digital pundits that "the writing's on the wall--the book is dead.")

     My son found an old Underwood typewriter, a "Finger Flight," from 1954 at the Salvation Army and brought it home under his arm. We outfitted it with a new ribbon (yes, you CAN still buy them, though the last typewriter company shut its doors in Mumbai, India in 2011), and he began to type, and type, and type. Then his sister saw it, and she started in typing, too. Then our friends came over the other night, and we shared a bottle of wine in front of the fire and composed a add-a-paragraph short story on it. 

     Suddenly everyone in our house is arguing over who gets to use the Underwood instead of who gets to use the Mac. There are long scrolls of language rolling out of that thing with all of the requisite x-ed out corrections (though I did find some old Eaton's Corrasable Bond and a box of Correcto type by rummaging through the detritus of my life). So for all you digital pundits, I'm looking at the mechanical handwriting on the paper wrapped around the return carriage (ding!) and it's a beautiful thing to see!