(Yawn) I'm really ready to crash tonight, so this will be a short post.
When I was in high school (yeah class of '68) I took a typing course, because everyone who planned to go to college was strongly advised to learn to type because you would be typing essays, etc. My girlfriend also took typing, but her class got to use electric typewriters, while mine used manual typewriters, much like the one above. You had to hit the keys quite briskly to connect to the paper, and even so, letters would range from light to very dark, depending. I managed to pass the course, but in the last 40 years, I have never broken myself of the bad habit of looking at my fingers while I type. Like, maybe the 'w' has moved to some other key? I dunno. I once bought a copy of "Mario teaches typing" and to my utter shame couldn't even progress with that. I even taped over the letters on the keyboard, resulting in some very strange words and a lot of frustration.
When my kids were in high school (late 90s), they were required to take "keyboarding", essentially typing, with the little quirks of the keyboard thrown in. My son still uses two fingers to type, and does so faster than I have ever typed at my best. Now there are no keyboarding classes, because (I guess) they figure if you haven't learned to use a keyboard by high school, you are such a Luddite that there isn't any point in wasting time on it now.
You can still find manual typewriters at flea markets and such, usually for no more than $2 or so. My daughter bought one just to fool around with; the ribbon is pretty faint, but readable. She has used it a time or two to fill in forms. She has expressed amazement, though, that at one time, that was all there was for typing. So archaic!
Bumper sticker for the day: Headline: "Eveready Bunny arrested; charged with battery!" (groan)
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