How to Fix a Typewriter and Your Life

"Eleven years ago, Paul Lundy was dying a slow, workingman's death under fluorescent light. For three decades, he had worked in facilities management an honest trade that ground him down until, in his mid-50s, he had money, an authoritative title and a soul that was being sucked dry. He managed buildings for Seattle-area biotech firms, where people in lab coats made discoveries that saved lives. He kept the infrastructure running."

"One Sunday morning in 2014, he opened The Seattle Times and found a feature story about Bob Montgomery, age 92, known to friends, customers and locals simply as Mr. Montgomery. The article read like an obituary for a vanishing trade fixing typewriters suggesting that when Mr. Montgomery went, seven decades of expertise would vanish into the digital ether. Lundy read it once, then a second time. He had never given old typewriters much thought, but something stirred in him that he could not quite name."

Paul Lundy worked in facilities management for three decades, maintaining Seattle-area biotech buildings while feeling burned out and limited by lack of a college degree. Long commutes and scarce advancement prospects made work joyless and retirement seem like a prison sentence. He learned about 92-year-old typewriter repairer Bob Montgomery and felt an unexpected attraction to the craft. Lundy traveled to Bremerton, found Montgomery's hidden five-floor shop, and engaged with the master craftsman. The hands-on apprenticeship offered mechanical skill development, renewed purpose, and the opportunity to preserve a pre-digital trade while changing Lundy's life.

Read at www.nytimes.com