For those of a certain age, you'll remember the noise of typewriters.

The ones we had in ninth-grade typing class were a regular keyboard... and over the course of the semester, the football coach who taught the class would put caps on the keys...

 

My 8th-grade typing teacher's name was Mr. Bakken. But he always introduced himself as "Terry Dale Bakken." Oh, lord. Straight outta 1955 with those coke-bottle glasses and non-descript trousers and short-sleeve button-down shirt.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party

And on and on and on and on. Mr. Terry Dale Bakken. RIP.

 

The Olivetti baby blue portable, a Xerox telecopier in a suitcase and a plus a carry case of pads, pens and media guides for a college football game. Nothing like traveling light in the late 1970s.
Those were the days?

 

I made a C- in my high school typing class, and I believe my teacher was being generous. I was horrible until I took a journalism internship my senior year in college. Something about meeting a deadline.


I still make a lot of mistakes. No way in hell could I use a manual/electric typewriter.

 

You mean this one...the old Olivetti Lettera32 (that, sadly, I no longer have):

 

Yep. The 57 Chevy of portables.

 

Absolutely.

The true story of my Olivetti:
Lucked into a pro beat at a very young age. Opening day of training camp happened to be my birthday. My mother, a few weeks earlier, asked me what I want for birthday gift...simple, I need a portable typewriter for work. My father asks what kind.
Only one answer: Olivetti Lettera 32!

 

I grew up in the computer age, but I appreciate the history and the beauty of a fine manual typewriter. I have two in my home office: a Remington Rand desktop that my father-in-law found in a storage shed and gave to me, and an Underwood portable that I bought at an antique store.

If I had money and was near somewhere to get at least the portable repaired, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

 

My 21 year old took typing aka keyboarding in grade 9 but his speed and accuracy really took off after he spent time with the Mavis Beacon tutorial.

We used to have speed typing contests. Best out of seven.

 

Ah, the IBM Selectric, complete with oscillating ball O' type. Great typewriter. I typed my high school papers and the papers during my first 3 years of college on that warhorse.

The end of my junior year in college, we got computers at school and a deal was set up to buy the early Macs in the bookstore. So my dad splurged and bought one I used my final two years

As for typing, it's always been a piece of cake, courtesy of Mrs. Martha Garrett. She was my high school counselor and someone who knew me from way back, since she was also my fifth-grade teacher. One day during my senior year in HS, she calls me into her office and says, "(Bird), Your writing and penmanship is atrocious and I notice you haven't taken a typing class. I don't care what your GPA is (a 3.75 at the time), you're not getting out of here without taking one, because you're going to need this for college.

So the following semester, I became acquainted with the late Mr. Corrigan, typing teacher extraordinare.