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Writer's pictureDoreen Flewell Klatt

Learning To Type

How do you type on your keyboard? Do you poke away at the keys with one finger or use two fingers to double your speed? Or are you all out with 10 fingers and 10 toes like the cartoon characters with imaginary letters flying above your head!

I learned to type in 1969, typing class in high school. Everyone in our grade, guys and gals had to take typing. All the classrooms were occupied so our typing class took residence on the stage in the gymnasium. They pulled the heavy curtain across the front so we couldn’t look out into the gym and set up rows of desks with typewriters on them. It was probably the most well-lit classroom when you think about all the lights on a stage.

I honestly can’t remember the brand names of the old typewriters we learned on but the pictures I’ve seen of the Remington and Underwood look exactly like the ones we plunked away on. Our first lesson was to familiarize ourselves with the keyboard letters. It was foreign to us as the letters did not follow the alphabet in any way. “Where did I see that “g” again?” I had small fingers and sometimes my fingers would go between the keys as you will remember, there were spaces between the elevated keys. That didn’t hurt much but it was frustrating. Our instruction was to type without looking at our fingers or the keyboard. Not many of us could take our eyes off the keyboard as we attempted to type.

One day we came to class and our teacher had put white tape over our keys and nailed a diagram of a keyboard high up on the wall directly in front of the class. We were told that we weren’t allowed to look at our hands and keys, but rather, look up to see the keyboard diagram. It was quite difficult not knowing the placement of the hands and fingers yet, but it actually worked and even though I received less than average typing speed in high school, it taught me the keyboard very well, and speed and accuracy would follow in the future.

Some of the funniest things happened during our classes. Our teacher demanded silence in our classroom. All she wanted to hear was the clicking of the keys. A couple of the guys “might” have removed the only carriage screw or jimmied with the carriage on their typewriter (and possibly other unsuspecting victims). The carriage was the part on top that scooted leftward as you typed. During class one day the carriage flew off one of those heavy machines and fell on the floor to the dismay of the student. The erupting laughter did not impress our teacher, and I can’t remember what happened to the guilty culprits or if they were ever found out. I remember we were all instructed to examine the carriage on our own machine.

Another trick was to change the letter caps as if we didn’t have enough trouble remembering where the letters were already! “What the …!” The key/letter caps could be pulled off and snapped onto another key.

Even with our prankster classmates, we managed to “pass” our typing class with the greatest memories ever! As I entered the work force, of course I graduated to electric models and then in the 1990’s, my first computer and word processor which made typing a breeze with it’s auto correct and solid (and quiet) keyboards. I won a $5 bet one day when my co-workers distracted me while I was typing the minutes of a meeting. I was looking, listening and talking to them and still typing. They bet me $5 that I was just hitting the keys randomly. They changed their tune when they read the minutes of the meeting and I was $5 richer!

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