Everything old is new again or so it would seem after seeing an ad for a typewriter -- not an old one, but a new one. Many of you will remember the typewriter, the thing we used to write term papers on before computers. It was an item every student went off to college with. Now, of course, it is a laptop or computer of some kind.

I still have my off-to-college portable typewriter, a Royal. It is powder blue and in a sturdy case. My mother had always encouraged me to take typing, which of course I didn't. 

I preferred to use the hunt and peck method or the Catholic method -- seek and ye shall find. Somehow, those methods have worked for me even as I use the computer. 

Looking back to the archaic way I did my column when writing for another local paper, I am thankful for my computer until it decides to use its own mind and I am in a bind as deadline looms.

Who can forget those typewriter years -- searching for the correct typewriter ribbon, black, red, or black and red. 

One great advantage of the computer is the delete key. There's no more whiting out mistakes or having to use the white-out tape which you placed over the mistakes. If things got too screwed up, there was no choice but to pull out the paper and start over; that was time spent I will never get back. I don't even want to remember when the paper would jam or be uneven, I shudder to think about it.

Honestly, I question why anyone would want to go back to the typewriter, even if it was one of the electric models. The only advantage would be if there is a power outage.

So in my basement sits a powder blue portable typewriter that went off to Salina, Kansas, for college and back to Riverside to write columns. It is one of those things that will not land out on the driveway for garbage pickup, but I'm not sure where it will end up. It certainly won't end up in the will for any of my tech-savvy family. 

If anybody is interested let me know. It only typed true news and true facts.