CBS 5 - KPHO Typewriter has keys to writing bliss for Valley woman

Many people belonging to the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s don't know what life was like before keyboards and computers.

Now, many twenty-somethings are exchanging the click of a mouse for the tap of a key.

"I think I was experiencing digital burnout," Sidney Delorean said.

Delorean was tire of her wired, online, synced in, LinkedIn, Facebook life.

"I am just exhausted from staring at screens and I wanted to do my writing on something a little more tangible, if that makes sense, to help organize my thoughts," she said.

Delorean said she wanted to give up her computer for something low tech -- or no tech.

"Tap, tap," she said.

Delorean wanted a typewriter.

Bill Wahl owns the Mesa Typewriter Exchange. He took it over from his father, who took it over from his father.

The store has been on the same street in downtown Mesa since the late '40s.

But 10 years ago, business started to slow down.

"I could have looked ahead and said, 'Yeah, I see a pattern here, this is going by the wayside,'" Wahl said. "At some point in time my customers are all going to die off."

But Wahl kept repairing and selling typewriters, and curiously he saw a resurgence in the machines.

"Now, there's this new wave of people interested in the machines," Wahl said. "I have scrapbookers that use those that really like them."

"Still, older people that have those from back in the day, some use it just for looks -- for display," Wahl said. "I get writers. They don't even care about the look of it, it's just all about the feel of it."

Delorean is one of those writers.

"I love it because I feel like I'm actually getting things done, like, yeah, I'm really accomplishing things right now," she said.

The tap, tap, tap is proof of progress.

"You hear that sound and it sounds like work is happening," Delorean said.

True, there's no cut-and-paste or spell check, but that isn't necessarily a disadvantage, Delorean said.

"It makes you think more when you're writing because you have to pay attention," she said.

Delorean says it's a better way of writing, living and "getting offline and into reality and being more in the present."

Even if "being in the present" feels a little like the past.

The Mesa Typewriter Exchange is a small business success story.

Wahl said that in the '50s, '60s and '70s, competing typewriter stores grew, but they stayed the same in size and in the same location.

Now, he's the only one left in the Valley. And because his store is so rare, he gets calls from all over the country from people wanting to buy a typewriter.

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