Typing!

I’m from the generation where we had the option to take typing classes, as an elective.

In 6th grade, a friend and I discovered that all the girls were in the typing class, no doubt preparing them to be secretaries. The second half of the school year, we elected to take typing classes. We were the only two boys in the class.

“Welcome!” the teacher said, her smile as big as the ivory keys on a piano. She sat us in the very front of the class. We heard the girls giggling. We got our revenge. At the end of the term, we were the number one and two typists in the class. I went on to take typing through the 9th grade, not because the girls populated the classes, but because it was an easy elective.

I didn’t know the typing classes would prepare me to be a writer, i.e., I was able to pound out my first 300+ page manuscript relatively quickly with very few typos on a manual typewriter. This skill would serve me well in college and as a paralegal, in addition to being a writer, though to this day I handwrite more first drafts.

To this day, I’m surprised how so many people hunt and peck on the keyboard, while I can close my eyes and type to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.