Technology "Remember when..."

[kbaxter60]

I took drafting my freshman year in high school. I liked it and was good at it, so I signed up for the advanced drafting class for my second year. Turns out it was just myself and one other student so they canceled the class. Now I had to scramble to figure out something to fill the gap.
Not much that excited me, so I decided to take a worthless typing class. Little did I know that it would probably be the most usefull class in my sophmore year.

And for the record, while I did learn to type fairly well, but I actually passed the coarse by fixing the broken mechanical typewriters.

Heh!
My mom talked me into taking typing in HS. Can't thank her enough. Class was about 90% girls, and it came in handy for computing. I got some time on the single Selectric in the class. Nice machine!

 

[Eastexasrick]

Wow! That's impressive! A WPM speed of 120 is considered "competitive" (70 and over is "high") and the world record is 191.

I, too, can type 150. 'Course, what comes out aren't exactly what you'd call identifiable "words"...

I took typing in the 8th grade. My mom insisted as my handwriting sucked. I was the only male in the class. The teacher was a cougar. We got along just fine. I did well on the manual machines. The teacher talked me into another semester, which was easy sell as I already nailed a nice plump red head in class, and pickings looked good. In the second semester we got the new electric models, and also learned 10 key. If I knew now what I should have known then I think I could have nailed the teacher. I made 68 words no errors, which despite the bullshit here is damn good. This paid better dividends than most every other class I took. We had a steno pool at the first company worked for, I typed faster than could take shorthand. This with drafting, and some decent math classes kept me at the front of the class. The degree did not hurt, but it added little value in the long run.

 

[oldag]

I took typing in junior high. 100WPM or so, and was business school student of the year. (Because I beat all of the girls in the class. First day of class, the teacher said "you boys (2 of us, I think) won't beat the girls. Right.

You were far better than I. A good friend took the same class. He and I were dead last.

 

[Bigguy]

We had a boy's typing class and a girl's typing class. Because of scheduling conflicts, I wound up in the girls's class. Academically, I was pretty solidly in the middle of the pack.
There was one classroom down in the basement, and that is where the typing class was. The old boy teaching this class was pretty left to himself dow in his hole. My problem was that he was what we called, "Light in the loafers." Even the hot little captain of the cheerleader squad couldn't get his attention for help. He'd swing by my desk every 5 minutes.
I only took the advanced typing the next year because I could take it with the boys. he behaved himself much better with all of the boys down there.

 

[leVieux]

We had a boy's typing class and a girl's typing class. Because of scheduling conflicts, I wound up in the girls's class. Academically, I was pretty solidly in the middle of the pack.
There was one classroom down in the basement, and that is where the typing class was. The old boy teaching this class was pretty left to himself dow in his hole. My problem was that he was what we called, "Light in the loafers." Even the hot little captain of the cheerleader squad couldn't get his attention for help. He'd swing by my desk every 5 minutes.
I only took the advanced typing the next year because I could take it with the boys. he behaved himself much better with all of the boys down there.

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I had a sorta similar H S experience. When I was about to turn 16, I wanted a “Browning Sweet 16” like Dad & GradPa shot. So I dropped big hints as my B D approached. I’d never afford one myself on my 55c/hour pay.

Dad had other ideas. He had to buy new typewriters for the typists in his Title Company.

On the big day, my box had a brand-new “Remington Standard” mechanical typewriter in it.

Then, I became the ONLY boy in our H S typing class. Of course, I hated it all.

But, the skills came in very useful in later life.

When life gives you lemons, go fishing !

leVieux

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