Bob Montgomery, one of the last remaining typewriter repairmen

Repair work keeps the 92-year-old from Washington in the United States up and about.

Bremerton's last typewriter repairman is 92 and he’ll tell you all kinds of stories. Bob Montgomery has the time for stories because he’s not that busy these days. Time passes slowly in his fifth-floor space at a downtown Bremerton office building in Washington, the United States.

At his age, he looks frailer than he is. But his mind is sharp, remembering details about machines manufactured a century ago.

His eyesight is good, and he uses magnifying glasses to work with tweezers on delicate parts.

Walk into his shop, and you’re transported to a different world. Outside, people are tethered to their smartphones, busy tweeting 140 characters of random thoughts.

Here, at the Bremerton Office Machine Company, the machines from a different era sit on shelves, relegated to collectors and those who never quite adjusted to staring at a screen.

What matters here are not quad-core processors, but things like a little round metal escapement wheel, its teeth used to move type one space forward.

Montgomery was seven or eight when he began going to his dad’s shop in downtown Seattle, changing ribbons, learning to repair the machines. That’s some 85 years of typewriters.

To be accurate, he’s not the last typewriter repairman. But in the Puget Sound area, he’s the last one who could be found whose full-time business is repairing typewriters.

In Bellevue, you can find Dave Armstrong, who also repairs typewriters but says it’s only 10% of his business, Computer & Printer Repair.

“A lot of people see something on Craigslist and get some romantic notion to write the great American novel on this thing,” says Armstrong.

“An awful lot of the machines are just not worth repairing.”

Every weekday, sometimes also on weekends, Montgomery takes the bus from the retirement community in which he lives to his shop. His rate is US$48 (RM155) an hour, and a punch time clock ticks away on the wall. 

Thousands and thousands of little typewriter parts are stored in drawers and plastic boxes. Montgomery is the only one who knows which specific model a little gizmo is for.

Some weeks he’s busy with people who bring in their antique-shop find, and those who still love their IBM Selectrics; 13 million were made from 1961 to 1986.

Sometimes, when he gets tired, Montgomery takes a nap on a couch in the office. “Then I’m good again for another two or three hours,” he says.

Montgomery remembers repairing typewriters during World War II in Bushy Park in London, right where General Dwight D. Eisenhower was stationed as the Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force.

The type balls for Selectrics are lined up in Montgomer's work space, where thousands of parts are stored in drawers and plastic boxes.

A few times, Montgomery saw Ike going to and fro. Wars generate not just casualties, but plenty of paperwork.

Montgomery had been drafted and trained as an infantryman. Then his records showed he could repair typewriters. “I think every latrine orderly had a typewriter,” he remembers.

When Montgomery returned from the war, he went back to the family business, which eventually moved to Bremerton.

Besides the machines, Montgomery’s other big love has been the Bremerton Community Theatre. He has acted in or been part of the production of more than 145 shows, as recently as a few months ago.

“It looks like the end of an era. We’re trying to figure out what he needs to retire,” says company president Paul Holiday.

Montgomery tries to explain his 85 years of love for the typewriters.

He says, “It’s the only machine I know of that you can put a piece of paper in it, start typing, and you see something appear on that paper.”

In the background, the punch time clock keeps marking the minutes. For a while, at least. – The Seattle Times/McClatchy-Tribune Information Services