Typing on the old Royal

In 1956 I had a semester of typing at good ol' Howard High School, located 8 miles from the BToS. We used manual Royal typewriters. The Royal required use of your hands and wrists to firmly push the keys rather than just your fingers like today's electronic keyboards. I wasn't the best in the class, but I was pretty doggone good on the final speed and accuracy tests. Looking back on it, taking that semester of typing was one of the best things I ever did.

After graduating from Howard High in 1959, I went to work for a local US Government outfit as a computer operator. Back in those days our IBM 705 Data Processing Machine was a vacuum tube computer that took up a whole 20' x 20' bay. The IBM 705 had a keyboard similar to a typewriter that was basically used in our operations environment to provide corrections when a processing error occurred or to start a new procedure.

We also used keypunch machines to record data on punch cards. It translated the characters you typed into IBM 80 column punch card format. I didn't do a lot of keypunching, but having typing experience sure made the whole job a lot easier than 'hunting and pecking' the proper keys.

But the best thing that happened to me regarding typing may have been during my time in the Maryland Army National Guard (NG). Our NG company changed from the 121st Engineers that I originally joined to the 115th Infantry during the mid-60s NG restructure for Vietnam support. I was reassigned from 'engineer supply specialist' to infantryman and given a terribly heavy BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) as my weapon. That humongous BAR about wore me out the first weekend of training in the woods at Camp A.P. Hill.

The next training weekend two weeks later, the first sergeant completed his speech to the company and then asked if anyone knew how to type...almost before he got the word 'type' out of his mouth, my hand shot up. Being 6' 4" at the time, my hand towered above any others!!! The first sergeant needed someone to work with the company clerk on all the records for the influx of draft-evading, new National Guard members. I was the new office flunky. Bye-bye BAR!!!

For the remaining 4 years of my active enlistment, I was a NG office worker keeping the company records current during the early Vietnam years. I have to admit that I was much better with the company's typewriter than I was with that BAR. The NG sure knew how to make best use of my talents. I commend them to this day.

My semester of typing in 10th grade at good ol' Howard High School prepared me with an office-worker, basic skill set (also known as typing) for the myriad positions I held over the next 44 years in the computer software business. It rescued me from that cumbersome BAR. And, it allows me to effortlessly (well almost) record my thots for this blog every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.

Yes sir, that semester of typing on the old Royal was the best thing that ol' JD ever stumbled into. Well not the best, but pretty darn good!

JD