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I used to write a small column for the local newspaper, and one of them was about this very subject...typing. I'm going to post it here.

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I'VE ALWAYS LOVED THAT TYPE WRITER
12-08-2016

Of ALL the high school, and college courses I've taken, over, lo, so many years, Miss Ash's typing classes have been the most valuable, and useful, in my adult life.

I think, in today's world, they call it "keyboarding". Typewriters are kind of rare nowadays, but, they were once the staple of every business around.

I took Typing I, and Typing II, in high school, mainly as a crib course, but, actually, I already knew a little about typewriters. I remember my Mother once rented a manual typewriter, along with a book about typing. She wanted to learn to type to possibly get a better job. I think she lost interest in it after about a month.

But, I didn't!

I was probably in the 4th, or 5th grade about that time, and I got her book on "typing", folded down the top on her Singer pedal sewing machine into a "desk", set up that old typewriter, and commenced to read, and learn.

Now, I never made it to the ultimate level of "touch typist", but I familiarized myself about things like, "shift", "return", tabs, and the "home keys". The basics.

But, starting typing class in high school, to my chagrin, the letters, on the keys, were all covered up! What the he....?!?

The teacher had a big, pull-down chart on the wall, identifying the whole keyboard, but we'd only get two, or three keys, a day. From there, it was typing page, after page, of, "asdf asdf asdf, asdf", ad infinitum. I did eventually learn to be a "touch typist", able to type anything without looking at the keyboard...now, if I could do that on the piano, I'd be a virtuoso.

After high school, I didn't use typing much, until one day - a bitterly cold day - in Germany. Trying to keep us all busy, the sergeant decided some of the ammo bunkers needed "sweeping out". He nabbed about ten of us, armed us with shop brooms, and we went on to the first bunker.

When I say, it was cold that day, I mean, IT WAS COLD THAT DAY! But, inside those bunkers, all concrete, it was even colder.

Anyway, about halfway through sweeping out the first one, the First Sergeant walked in and bellowed, "Anybody in here know how to type?". "I'm your man, Sergeant!", I blurted out. The Sergeant said, "Report to the Orderly Room (the office), we gotta s***load of typin' to be done!" Overjoyed at the thought of getting out of this sweeping detail, and working in a nice, warm, office, I snapped, "YESSIREE!".

Upon arriving at the Orderly Room, I did find a mountainous stack of forms to be typed, but I didn't care how big the pile was, so long as it got me out of that cold, cold, bunker.

What was to have been a week, filling in as a clerk-typist, turned into a month, leading to being tapped as the squadron "mail carrier". My job then, in addition to the typing, was every morning to drive about 15 miles, into the main Base, and pick up the squadron's mail, and to sort, and distribute same, when I returned. I even had to take the USPS postal exam, and everything. The irony was, I was actually a Missile Guidance Tech that had been sent to a greatly overstaffed missile shop, and they were farming out all of the non-NCO's for miscellaneous jobs.

After I was discharged from the Air Force, in 1968, I decided to combine my love of music, my writing skills, my training in electronics, and my baritone voice, and I enrolled at the "Atlanta School Of Radio & TV Broadcasting", become an Announcer/ Deejay. I subsequently spent over 15 years in that profession, and during the whole time, my typing skills were invaluable. I had to constantly write news stories, advertising copy, Public Service Announcements, and business letters, all, on typewriters.

While in the JayCees, I did the monthly newsletter, along with op eds, and newspaper columns and articles.

Later, working at the telephone company, I was tapped to create a 200 page technical training manual.

In the 80's, along came computers, and I got me a book, and learned "programming". I spent my final, five years with the phone company, as a "systems analyst", writing and maintaining business applications. Without typing, none of this would have been easy.

All of these things, thanks to an old, "Underwood", typewriter, and a typing teacher). I actually ran into her a couple of years ago, while out shopping. We chatted for a bit, and as soon as she remembered that I was not my cousin, Smokey, we talked about "typing". I told her about that her classes had been worth more to me than a College education... and, I mean that!

I love the fact that I can still type, the old fashioned way. I still use it almost daily in writing my little anecdotes, as well as many other tasks.

But, I find it totally ironic, that after all that keyboard training, I'm sitting here, "hunting and pecking" an "on-screen" keyboard on this I-Pad.

I guess if it wasn't for "auto-correct", I'd be putting "Wite-Out" on the screen for my spelling errors.

Old habits die hard.

Great story, thanks for posting.

I was completely bored during the first semester high school typing class. For some reason the second semester I became interested and ended up being one of the best in the class. Have used the skill in every job since.

I had to take Personal Typing the 1st semester of my junior year so I could get on the HS newspaper staff the next semester. Then my dad was transferred to another state for my senior year and I found I had all the credits I needed for graduation except the required 1 semester state history class. However, I couldn’t take just that so I filled my schedule with every business class offered in that small HS (42 in my class.) This included a full year of typing so I really got my speed improved.

The only other class that was as helpful in college was Senior English where the teacher basically taught us how to easily pass freshman composition in college. Blessed that man’s name my entire freshman year while many of my peers couldn’t write a thesis statement to save their soul.