You know you are getting old when you remember that you were required to take typing class in Junior High where everyone learned using an IBM Selectric. The classroom was filled with an overwhelming cacophony of clicks and taps and pecks and slaps. You practiced at home on a mechanical antique learning the art of a positive and decisive keystroke careful to type discriminately lest the typebars all come up at once only to get stuck.
You know you are old when kids these days learn word processing and keyboarding in Middle School where they are taught one space after a period instead of two and where 40 words per minute is fine instead of the 65 your strict childhood instructor made you achieve. The room is quiet save the occasional text message alert and white out is a meteorological event, not a tape or paint to fix a mistake.
You know you are old when your typing can be heard in the next room and people think you are angry due to the misunderstood assumed abuse you are giving the keyboard. Well, I don’t know how to keyboard, I can’t for the life of me stop spacing twice after a period, and look, I can type with my eyes closed!
Endless hours of typing a a a a a, b b b b b, and c c c c c have seared key positions into my brain and I remember with fondness the wonderful feeling of typing. Typing on an old mechanical typewriter with a positive keystroke in rhythm with my thoughts.
