Duane Jensen’s life changed when he found out he could fix typewriters. But are they fixing him, too?
The Analogs is a production of KJZZ’s The Show in Phoenix, Arizona. This episode was produced, written and edited by Sam Dingman, with additional production by Amber Victoria Singer. The cover art is by Claire Lawton. The Show’s executive producer is Amy Silverman. Special thanks to Duane Jensen.
Transcript
Sam Dingman I’m Sam Dingman, co-host of KJZZ’s The Show. Last year, I did a series of profiles we called The Analogs — stories about people who make things by hand, and what those things tell us about those people. My reasons for telling these stories will become clear as the series progresses, so for now, here’s Episode 1: Fixin’ Is Fun.
[ANALOGS THEME MUSIC PLAYS]
Sam Dingman The first person I want to tell you about is Duane Jensen. Duane Jensen fixes typewriters.
Duane Jensen Gonna move that out of the way.
[TYPING ON TYPEWRITER]
Sam Dingman Duane works in his garage, next to his car, which is covered in Rush stickers — the band, not the shock jock. He’s got a workbench packed with tools — fine metal prods, calipers, tiny screwdrivers and a magnifying glass. Behind him, and on shelves that stretch from one end of the room to the other, are typewriters — some of them over a hundred years old. There are a handful of electric typewriters, but most of Duane’s typewriters are manual. You feed paper into them with a hand-rolled crank, and when you press down on a key, a hinge triggers a metal bar with a letter carved into its tip. The letter thwacks against a ribbon that’s pressed against the paper. Where once there was only blank space, now there’s the beginning of a word — maybe a love letter, or a poem, or a novel.
Duane finds none of this romantic.
Duane Jensen I’m just in that category of writers you know where I just wanna hold my typewriter against me and go to bed with it — or something. But I’ll fix your typewriter. I make these people very happy, and, you know. So that’s fun.
Sam Dingman Duane started fixing typewriters because he lost his job at a hardware store. It was the early 80’s, and he was a teenager, living in his first apartment.
Duane Jensen My mom died, and my abusive — well, semi-abusive father moved back to the house. We were incompatible, so I left before I was 17.
Sam Dingman He spent some time living out of his car, or with friends from the neighborhood. Eventually, he found his own place.
Duane Jensen Got set up in the trailer park at $50 a week. A little trailer — I mean a little trailer, for a six foot six guy. My head hit the top of this trailer — I mean I think I was hunched down the whole time. But you know, it was my place, it felt very great. Everything was fresh and new, and on my own, and that was just the beginning of it.
Sam Dingman He’d been applying for new jobs, but he didn’t have a phone in his trailer. So he’d been giving potential employers the number of a payphone across the street, outside a laundromat. Every day, he’d wake up early, sit by the window, and wait for the payphone to ring. One day, at about 6:30am, it did.
Sam Dingman So the phone rings, and you — what, just sprint across the street?
Duane Jensen Yep — sprint across, and it’s them, and they wanna do an interview. So we set that up, and that was it. Went there and got the job within a day.
Sam Dingman The job was at an office supply company called Dick’s Supply. Part of the job at Dicks was fixing office supplies, like electric typewriters, and Duane knew his way around a circuit board — he’d taken an electronics class in high school. Thing is, electric typewriters were still relatively new back then, so they didn’t break very often. So during their down time, some of the older guys at Dick’s started teaching Duane how to fix manual typewriters. After a few years, Duane switched to a different company with a bit more of a traditional corporate culture. They sent him to a training school for formal typewriter fixing lessons.
Duane Jensen And so that was fun, because half the time I knew the machine better than the instructor did. And so you know, I just felt comfortable fixing the stuff. Confident, right away.
Sam Dingman Eventually, typewriters gave way to computers, and the company didn’t need guys like Duane to fix them anymore. But Duane wasn’t ready to shake that feeling of comfort and confidence. So he opened up his own typewriter repair shop. Sometimes, there wasn’t much work, but Duane still showed up at the shop every morning. He stayed there all day, from eight to five, even if all he did was look up old typewriter models on the internet and listen to Rush.
Duane Jensen So I just kept it going, idling kind of. And kept the day shop open and worked a night job for ten years.
Sam Dingman And what was the night job?
Duane Jensen Pizza Delivery.
Sam Dingman After a full shift at the typewriter shop, Duane would deliver pizzas until around midnight. But that wasn’t the end of his day.
Duane Jensen You know, I’d go to the casino ‘til one in the morning, come home by 2, in bed, up at 7, back to the shop at 8.
Sam Dingman Duane’s bosses at the pizza shop were impressed with his work ethic — they offered him a job as a manager. But he turned it down.
Duane Jensen And they never raised my minimum wage — even though I was there ten years. And at one point I says, “You can give me a dime more than the other drivers you’re just hiring — I never make mistakes, I never ruin a food order. I deserve — “Well, that’s all you’re gonna get.” A couple times I shoulda left. But I didn’t.
Sam Dingman Did you find you were putting a lot of the money you got at the pizza place into the typewriter business?
Duane Jensen Absolutely — it was a supplement for that. That’s why I started working more hours there, and everything.
Sam Dingman To keep this going?
Duane Jensen Yep, it was for that.
Sam Dingman Duane says that from the time he opened his typewriter shop, until about 2008, he probably repaired about fifty manual typewriters. But in 2008, something changed. His phone started ringing off the hook. Parents were calling to say that their daughters wanted a typewriter for Christmas — could they bring in an old one for him to fix up? Or did he have any for sale?
Duane Jensen So I asked ‘em, I said why are you interested? They said, “She watched this movie called “Kitt Kittredge.”
Narrator The first theatrical motion picture based on the American Girl books!
Kitt Dear dad: here at home, things are hopping! The house is chock full of boarders, which keeps us pretty busy. There’s the dance instructor …
Duane Jensen She’s using a typewriter — that’s why they wanted it. That’s why the little girl wanted it. So then, it couldn’t’ve been a week later, another call, another girl, and her parents call. And the same thing, they saw the same movie, Kitt Kittredge.
Sam Dingman The first winter this happened, Duane sold ten typewriters in a month. Then twenty. Then thirty. And the boom continued — Tom Hanks became a typewriter evangelist. Taylor Swift featured one in a music video. 2022 was Duane’s biggest year of all — and business is still brisk. The day I visited his garage, he had 300 typewriters on display, many of which were already marked as sold. He estimates he’s one of about thirty people in the US who still work on manual typewriters.
Duane Jensen Workin’ 80 hours a week, in the heat!
Sam Dingman Yeah!
Duane Jensen Almost killed me!
Sam Dingman I mean, we’re sitting out here, it’s like a hundred degrees …
Duane Jensen Sorry.
Sam Dingman And I know you’re hooked up to an oxygen machine here — does that make it difficult?
Duane Jensen No — well, yeah, mobility, and I have COPD, so I have trouble breathing. That — that came about about seven years ago. So, this business was part of the factor I have COPD, because I had a shop 20 years ago without ventilation, and the center fumes deteriorated my lungs, and the chemical burns. That’s why my lungs are not working.
Sam Dingman Wait — so your lungs were damaged by doing the typewriter work?
Duane Jensen By the smell of the chemicals.
Sam Dingman He says his lung condition was diagnosed seven years ago.
Duane Jensen They gave me a five year life span. That was seven years ago, so I’m already beatin’ it.
Sam Dingman Ever the gambler, Duane’s still fixing typewriters. These days, he keeps a fan blowing, and works with the garage door open. He has two children, and they don’t totally understand why he won’t quit.
Duane Jensen They think I’m crazy. A little bit, you know? … You’re workin’ too hard, you know, and stuff. You’re not makin’ that much money. I’m like, well …
Sam Dingman So you just like fixing ‘em?
Duane Jensen Fixin’ is fun! … Yeah, so I guess it’s me, now. Put a typewriter in with my casket, in the grave. And a Rush album.
[LAUGHS]
Sam Dingman The Analogs is a production of The Show, on KJZZ 91.5, in Phoenix, Arizona. This episode was produced, written, and edited by me, Sam Dingman, with additional production by Amber Victoria Singer. The Show’s executive producer is Amy Silverman. Special thanks to Duane Jensen for inviting me into his garage — and to you, for listening.
Next time, we’ll meet a woman named Tamara who was stuck in a destructive loop.
Tamara Rowland I actually went through life — most of my life — paranoid that people could read the thoughts in my head … That led me to a life of repressing and pushing away all those thoughts and feelings — saying, if I adhere to this expectation of what society thinks I should be — this perfect man and father and husband and all that — that those thoughts will go away.
Sam Dingman So Tamara decided she was going to write her way out of the spiral. She started journaling — and that gave her an idea.
Tamara Rowland I’m like, “I wanna make a pen for me. I think there’s some meaning here, this personal connection that I’ve found, I’m like, OK, this is mine, and these are my thoughts goin’ through it.”
That’s next time on The Analogs.
