Among the old-timey sounds you’ll hear at the Los Angeles County Fair: the shrieks of people on thrill rides, calliope-style carnival music, the cluck-cluck of hens.

Add an unexpected one: the clack-clack of typewriters.

Tucked inside Exhibit Hall 6, a section dubbed Type Town is devoted to typewriters.

There, typewriters are displayed behind glass like precious objects, including a 1950s metallic-green model autographed by its previous owner, Tom Hanks. Others are out in the open, ready for use.

Reproductions of midcentury advertisements and typing manuals give a flavor of their era. Pieces of typewriters hang next to famous quotes, like this one from Ernest Hemingway: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” (Preach it, Ernie.)

Movie stills depict actors behind typewriters, like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.” Alongside is the chilling mantra he typed out over and over: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

A selfie station has a B&W photo of a secretarial typing pool as backdrop. There are delightful touches around the exhibit that you might miss. A mock package, for instance, is addressed to writer Ray Bradbury at 451 Fahrenheit St.

The county fair turned the exhibit space over to typewriter titan Aaron Therol. He owns a boutique business named Typewriter Connection in Los Angeles’ Arts District.

Therol spent six weeks building out the space. With help from his girlfriend, artist Kathie Chan, and with access to castoff pieces in the fair’s prop area — old wooden doors, weathered tables and vintage street lamps — the duo created the Type Town “village” feel.

“They were so welcoming,” Therol says of fair staff.

For the interactive element that fairgoers love, two “typing stations” feature typewriters bolted to tables, with blank paper ready to be fed into the roller.

It’s a chance for children or young adults to try out this once-common technology, or for older adults to refresh their skills.

“The kids are so fascinated. Just the tactile feel of typewriters,” Therol says.

Mark Mageno, 38, of Pomona is cackling as he tries to remember what he’d learned as a boy about typewriters. “My parents, no, my grandparents had one,” Mageno recalls.

“In third grade we typed reports. Once fifth grade came along, it was computers,” Mageno says. “From a typewriter to a computer, it was like, ‘whoa.’”

His children, Myles, 10, and Meredith, 7, are using nearby typewriters, or trying to. Their mother, Nancy, is helping Meredith but confides: “I couldn’t remember how to load paper in.”

I ask Magano what he’s typing. He reads it: “My wife, Nancy, I love you.”

Myles’ page, the lines and phrases spaced far away on the sheet, reads in part: “penguins are awesome. they’re cute an cuddly and soft.”

Says his mother: “They would never have seen a typewriter in their lives if not for the L.A. County Fair.”

One young man is typing while looking at a phone held by a young woman.

“When I was little,” explains Jennifer Holguin, 24, of Ontario, “I watched a show called ‘Jersey Shore.’” (It aired 2009-2012.) In one episode, a woman was being cheated on and everyone in the shared house knew it. To let her know while avoiding individual blame, they wrote a group note on a typewriter.

Holguin is holding a screenshot of the typed note on her phone while her friend Jose Olivarez, 25, of Duarte types it out.

This must be one of the more recent examples of typewriting in the popular media. Although Therol says Taylor Swift uses a typewriter in a new music video and the title character in TV’s “Wednesday” does the same.

“In the media, you see people hitting it and it going ‘ka-ching,’” Olivarez says of a typewriter’s carriage return and bell. “I really like the tactility.”

“The sounds make it,” affirms Holguin. “On a phone you only hear sounds if your nails go ‘click-clack.’”

Typing on a manual typewriter takes more finger strength than the touchscreen generation expects. But maybe not as much as they are using.

Therol tells me: “I’ve already got two machines down. People are hitting them pretty hard.”

Like my dad, who was a business teacher at a community college, yours truly, 61, is a touch typist who learned on a typewriter before moving on to word processors and computers.

Therol, a graphic designer, is 46. He had no experience with typewriters until his 30s.

Taking out the trash one day, he encountered what he thought was a suitcase but which was actually a typewriter in a case. He became transfixed.

During his research into the machines and their history, and his purchase of broken models, he met a retired aerospace engineer, Garrett Lai, who said casually that he could repair them.

They formed a partnership to launch Typewriter Connection, a business to restore typewriters and sell them, while also promoting them as a cultural artifact. After Lai died in 2020, Therol considered closing, until realizing he had absorbed repair skills from watching Lai. So he kept going.

Like vinyl records or clasp suitcases, typewriters make for retro-style decor and have a certain niche utility too. A woman who makes typewriter greeting cards will be at Type Town this Saturday (May 17). On May 24, The Haikuist will compose haiku on the spot on the typewriter.

Therol is on Instagram, and when I contacted him via email from his website, he replied with his cell number. Had he chosen to type a letter, lick a stamp and mail it, you’d be reading about something else today.

What does Therol find captivating about typewriters?

Like cars, typewriters are essentially the same, and yet they’re all a little different. And in a complex world, typewriters do one thing. They transcribe your thoughts as they come.

“There’s no delete, there’s no spellcheck,” Therol tells two girls, who are fascinated.

A bit later, he says to me: “In a time when we are always judged, a typewriter accepts you.”

This is a good place to stop. You see, I’m suddenly aware that my cursor is blinking at me.

David Allen touch-types Friday, Sunday and Wednesday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.