One Handed Password - Not So Easy To Type

Someone in the family suggested that I take a typing class when I was heading into the 10th grade.  They said it would make school a lot easier if I could type papers, etc.  I never thought much about it at the time but used the typing class as my last elective.  This would have been in the fall of 1956.

My parents bought me a portable typewriter that I was able to use for just the purpose of preparing papers for school and writing the occasional letter.  After doing very well in the typing class, typing papers became second nature to me through high school. Little did I know then just how handy my typing skill would be during my future.  I never envisioned myself using it for much but school work and certainly didn't envision having a job using it every day.

My first full-time job was as a computer operator on an IBM 705 that had a keyboard.  The system on that 705 didn't require a lot of typing like today's computers; typically it already knew what it was going to do and all the operator had to do was start it and maybe answer queries with a couple of keystrokes.

Over the years the computer keyboard and office typewriter became daily tools and part of the job.  Many times I thanked that forgotten person that suggested I take typing in high school; and I still do today while sitting here at home at the keyboard on my personal computer.  Typing ability made my life in the computer software business much simpler and more productive.

I was in the Maryland National Guard and trained initially as an Engineering Supply Specialist.  During the buildup for Vietnam, my unit was changed from an Engineering Company to an Infantry Company.  My initial assignment was to learn how to use and carry around one of those humongous BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) weapons.

After two long 3-day, weekend training sessions in the woods of a local Army facility, I was about tired of carrying that BAR all the time.  The number of members in the company was increasing due to young men trying to avoid the draft and being sent to Vietnam.  At one of the First Sargeant's company meetings he asked if anyone in the company could type.  Almost before he got the word type out of his mouth my hand shot up in the air and I traded my BAR for a position behind a typewriter assisting the company clerk.  The final 4 years of my active duty in the National Guard was much more relaxing than those two long training weekends with that heavy, heavy BAR weapon.

I've been typing in one form or another for pretty much my whole life.  One of the most peculiar things I've run across with the keyboard is that I have a password for one of my websites where all the letters of the 8-letter password are typed with the same hand.  Now, it's not that it's difficult to accomplish the password entry, it's just that every time I type it I notice how peculiar it feels.  I change my passwords regularly, but I always manage to reuse that peculiar 8-letter, single-hand password.  It's obviously my favorite.

JD, still typing my favorite password here in the BToS.