Mount Airy Village shop owner teaching typing lessons in typewriter garden
MOUNT AIRY (WPVI) -- If you're one of the many around the region looking for outdoor activities and classes now that summer is in full swing - there's a business in Mount Airy that has successfully made something old, new again.
In 2017, Pamela Rogow opened W.P.M. Typewriter Shop in what's colloquially known as Mt. Airy Village.
"We sell typewriters, fix typewriters, rent typewriters and I have the best team," she said.
Rogow's shop offers various types and brands of typewriters that span over a century.
She says whatever your style, she can find you a suitable match.
Interested customers should call ahead and then are welcome to come to the shop to try any typewriters they like to see which model works best for them.
"We have typewriters galore, quite a few hundred," she said.
Fortunately for Rogow, she decided to get a little creative with her outdoor space about a year before the pandemic hit, creating what she calls, the garden of typewriters.
"Anybody's welcome to come in when it's open," she said.
She tapped into her background in museum exhibit design and got some help from friends, Lindsay Weightman and Ashley Gehman, to turn the garden into "something quite whimsical."
"I think it's time for people to benefit from typewriters," she said. "Typewriters discipline you to do your best."
She recently started teaching touch typing classes for both adults and kids in the garden. Rogow says that typing helps people to focus, since there is no delete button on a typewriter.
"The intention is every letter and the rhythm is a very even tempo," explained Rogow. "So that's calming."
She says typing also helps you to, "produce your ideas in alignment," and likens the rhythm at which you're striking the keys to a trotting horse.
"It feels like butter," she said.
She adds that, "the garden turned out to be a splendid opportunity" for both her and the community, especially now that learning is taking place in that space.
"Children are proud to learn and will have a skill for the rest of their lives, so that's a wonderful thing," she said.
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