True story number seventeen

You have FW Fanatic Henrietta Clews to thank for this one. She asked how I got
so interested on old machinery, I started to answer her e-mail and realised
another true story was on the way

My love of ancient machines goes back nearly 25 years. I was sick with 'flu and
being very sorry for myself (you might have noticed that men are pretty good at
this). Maggie, my SO (we are still together) is not the most patient of souls
and eventually walked out of the apartment in a desperate attempt to find
something to take my mind off being totally bored.

I think she was headed to buy magazines but her route took her past a thrift
store in which she spied an old typewriter looking very sad and uncared for.
She knew that I prefered an old-fashioned manual machine to the, then,
new-fangled electric varities, and  called into the shop to buy it as a joke.
When she asked how much it was , the assistant appologised and said that it
really shouldn't be there because it was broken and could not be fixed.
"Perfect," said Maggie, "I'll take it."
She came back with the machine, dropped it dramatically on the bed and said;
Here you are, fix this!"
Twenty plus years later I'm still fixing. All that journalistic training and
experience down the tubes.
I blame Maggie of course for converting a scribe on his way to his first
Pulitzer into a creature besoted by what most consider junk.
But, between you and I, there's no way I'd trade back.