Tags
1950s, high school, IBM selectric, ipad, MAC, notebook, paper, pem, phone, Slice of life, term paper, type, typewriter, writing
Slice 74 of 365
I’m writing this on my phone right now because my iPad is charging. When I was a kid I would occasionally keep a journal and at no time did I ever think I’d be able to write on a phone that I could carry with me everywhere let alone post to an almost imaginary place called the Internet.
I wrote long hand and was not very good at it. I’m still not. Penmanship was not my friend. Great word though, penmanship. Like swordsmanship or sportsmanship. It sounds powerful and it is, words can and often are the most powerful things in the universe.
It would be helpful if the words meant the same things to all people but as is so often the case that’s an entirely different post for another day. 😉
Almost nobody writes anymore using pen and paper. It’s all on some kind of keyboard or even by voice. I don’t pick up a pen because I scare them with how awful my cursive is. Even my printing could be critiqued and beaten by a shaky 2nd grader with their eyes closed.
We had my mom’s portable manual typewriter when I was young. I remember doing junior high term papers on it and then one day my dad was given an IBM Selectric from the 50s. It was a behemoth of an electric typewriter. It was loud and and an ugly brown but it worked, for the most part. The thing I remember most about it was that I could now make mistakes even faster. Similar things get said today about computers.
I used some computers in high school but it was for programming not word processing. I do recall there being special machines that only did word processing. That’s a funny word for writing. I’ve always found word-smithing a funny term too.
The first thing I ever had written and printed on a personal computer (a MAC) was my resume. A friend of mine (still friends today) wrote it and he had to print it at school because he didn’t have a printer at home. He could only print me five copies, that was the limit.
I used to carry around a little notebook and a pen to make notes, lists and what not. Now I just ask Siri to do things for me.
I wish Siri did laundry. Maybe someday.
Until tomorrow…