From September 1968 through June 1971, I was a student at Jamestown High School. Back then, JHS was a grade 10-12 school, as Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, were junior high schools of grades 7, 8 and 9, and our elementary schools were grades K-6. (I went to St. James Parochial School for grades K through 9 and then moved to JHS, along with about 30 plus others with whom I spent my first 10 years of education growing up.)

Anyway, when I got to high school, I was able to take some elective classes to balance out my Regents diploma curriculum, and one of those was typing.

Mind you, we had no computer keyboards back then. We used good old-fashioned typewriters. I remember the portable one we shared at home, where certain keys would stick and we’d have to stop and pull it back to its slot before we could move on.

I also remember when we made a mistake, we had to roll the carriage up about five or six spaces, get out this silver dollar sized round eraser with a brush attached, erase our mistake, then remember how many spaces we spun the carriage, return it there, backspace once, and hopefully spell the word correctly on our second attempt.

Our school typewriters were a little larger than our home portable ones, and we had someone there to help us as we learned how to type a little faster that we, or at least I, was able to do. (Thanks, Miss Moyer.)

I remember those taped lessons that had us stare directly at the text we were copying and not at the keyboard, and with our fingers starting on the “home keys,” begin the exercises following the monotone voice giving the directions of “J-J-J space, G-G-G space,” etc.

Despite all the efforts of Miss Moyer, and all of her demonstrating, motivating, prompting, and encouraging, I still couldn’t take my eyes off the keyboard, and I couldn’t get my hands to let me use more than two fingers with which to type my letters, reports, documents, etc. Sorry, Miss Moyer.

I’ve written much in my life. Up until about the mid-eighties, I wrote most of what I needed to, by hand. In junior high and high school, I did use our home portable typewriter some, but not often. I remember having to type my high school term paper, but most everything else in high school was hand written. In college, I did have to type more, which I begrudgingly did, but only for those things where typing was required by the professor.

After being issued laptop computers in the Jamestown schools, circa about the later 1990s, if I remember correctly, I began typing more and more, using it for creating tests, study guides, hard copies of skill guidelines, like letter writing, essay examples, reports, anything that might need to be in formal printed-like form or narrative form. Through all of this, I remained a two-fingered typist.

Following retirement in 2008, with the encouragement of Sally, I wrote some short books which were published, all three which were typed in two fingered harmony, so to speak. In 2009, I was given the opportunity to begin writing for this publication, and have written over 525 narratives for The Post-Journal, all with the index finger of my left hand and the middle finger of my right hand.

I recall a time I was typing something in school when my teaching partner, Gina, came in and started laughing at my style of typing. Apparently, I looked kind of funny with my “hunt and peck” style of writing.

I also recall, following my 2018 subdural hematoma, and my difficulties with manual dexterity, I was reduced to typing a piece in this forum with only one finger, taking me about three plus hours to complete.

As I continue typing my articles, my letters of recommendation for former students and athletes, our annual Christmas letter, etc., I’m now very accustomed to, and comfortable with, my way of doing it. It works for me, and lets me do the job I set out to do.

I’ve always believed in the adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Two-fingered typing has gotten me this far, so I think I’m going to stick with it.