As a high school senior I took a typing class as an elective with hopes it would provide some relief to my abysmal GPA. This was 1977 so the typewriters used for instruction were manual monstrosities not given to forgiving the clumsy fingers of a distracted teenager. But the real obstacles to success were my attitude and scheduling. I couldn’t have cared less about improving my typing skills, and the tedium of the exercise quickly consumed any previous ambitions to boost my numbers. Worse, the class was during 5th period, right after lunch.
Lunch hour at Churchill High School in the pre “war on drugs” days, like any other respite, was wholly devoted to smoking as many bowls of whatever the market made available as time and privacy would allow. While dazed and confused made other classes simply challenges to basic cognition, improving my typing skills through what I seem to recall was deemed the “touch system” taught in Ms. Jewell’s class constituted a bridge way too far. Larry, a diligent classmate assigned the typewriter next to mine, was a very nice guy, as well as both sober and reasonably motivated not to waste the hour each day. He would provide the metric for my inane futility.
The grading structure was as fair as it was simple and straightforward. The first day of the class we were given a few paragraphs to practice, and at the end of the day were timed for several minutes to establish a baseline for our speed and competence. I clocked in at a wretched 14 words per minute with plenty of errors. Larry scored 18 words per minute, and seemed dissatisfied with the effort. Thus, our baselines established, the rest of the semester was given to transforming us from hunt and peckers to masters of the touch system. The beauty of it was nothing could be fudged or BS’d, final grades would wholly reflect how much the number improved by term’s end.
As the semester progressed I couldn’t help but notice, on the occasions I actually made it to class – skipping classes was a preferred activity – Larry’s diligence at the keyboard. He seemed content to tackle the paragraphs Ms. Jewell distributed each day, always emphasizing different words meant to stress various letter combinations designed to enhance touch system dexterity. Larry was clearly gaining both ability and confidence as the weeks passed, his determination never appearing to wane. Me, I was usually all out not to doze, and never gave the touch system much of a go, hunt and peck ruled my 5th periods to the end.
Unfortunately for my quest to enhance my scholastic bona fides, the final typing test which would determine our grade for the semester happened to coincide with a friend coming into a significant quantity of black Pakistani hash. He was generous and I was not near at the top of my game as Ms. Jewell passed out the test sheets. Larry looked ready to excel, his fingers laid confidently across the keys. Honestly, I could have been straight as a guardrail and still embarrassed myself. The old touch system and I just never jelled, my indifference to anything about the whole endeavor dooming any prospect of synergy from the start.
Ms. Jewell was an attractive yet severe woman, who had a curt way of talking that made one disdain the language. It was as if she knew whatever she had to say was not compelling and getting the whole thing over with quicker was for the best. “Class get ready… and type” was the standard instruction for typing tests. This was the big one. I glanced over at Larry and he looked like a secretary, his fingers like Liberace on the antiquated keys. Sensing imminent massive failure, I began furiously hunting and pecking, my eyes shifting to the test copy as my addled brain tried vainly to memorize chunks of text for transcription. Of course “time!” came way too fast, and a gaze at my sorry production confirmed the worst. Larry looked pleased with his effort, a near full sheet of single-spaced verbiage before him. He glanced at my wreckage with what seemed an amused eye. A semester’s worth of chickens were home to roost. I felt like crap. My lord, I couldn’t even cut it in typing class… a hard lifetime of road construction crews lay before me.
The final numbers confirmed the obvious. Larry, who I assume received the “A” I originally coveted, clocked in at 62 words per minute! Whatever career he was headed toward, he now possessed typing abilities that would assist his progress. My final number was…. 12 words per minute. I had actually regressed. God does have a sense of humor, and I eventually cultivated an abiding interest in political science and journalism as college pursuits. Hunt and pecking became a bane of my existence as I sought to finish term papers, essays and articles late into the night, clumsily transcribing notes and research to finished copy. At the end of the day, Ms. Jewell’s typing class clarified a life lesson as basic as it was valuable: effort determines success, and attitude dictates effort. Moronic indifference to improvement guarantees failure… common sense stuff even a stoner teen can grasp.
These memories flooded back yesterday as I watched our President preside over his now trademark version of a cabinet meeting. Now two years in not a thing has changed – read improved – since the first kabukifest he chaired in early 2017. The rambling, unhinged opening monologue, the bogus figures, recited with the casual insincerity liars always exhibit, a conference table full of sycophants forcing smiles and abasing themselves as they heap false flattery on a boss who constantly demands such prostrations. Trump, arms tightly crossed against his ever expanding torso, eyes glazing over at anything not presented in line with his narcisstic sensibilities. But most of all the transparent uselessness of the whole exercise, the overt waste of time and taxpayer expense the whole charade embodies. Nothing has progressed an iota. A President clarifying, after two full years, his utter disdain for learning to better do the job he was entrusted with… to become more than a hunt and pecker, hopelessly flailing at the mid term.
The attitude Trump brought to his Inaguration was no better than mine when I headed to 5th period typing. Each doomed us to failure. The difference, tragic for our country and the world, is I allowed my failure to inform me and ultimately improve my future disposition. Trump is way too old a mutt to learn any new tricks. His disdain for the Presidency’s requisites will be just as great the day he is forced from the White House grounds as the moment he was given the keys to the castle. That’s a certainty. We are stuck with 12 words per minute. BC