I used a typewriter long before I could read or write, banging out sheet after sheet of gibberish. In school, I turned in any assignment typewritten whenever I

I used a typewriter long before I could read or write, banging out sheet after sheet of gibberish. In school, I turned in any assignment typewritten whenever I could get away with it. My own two-finger system, of course, but I did get reasonably proficient over time. Come seventh or eighth grade, an optional typewriting class made it unto the curriculum (this was in the seventies, a good while before computers entered the picture). A walkover for me, of course, the only one in class who had ever done any typing at all. Except it wasn't. I flunked. Miserably. The only one to do so. My habits turned out to be a hindrance, I never got the hang of ten fingers and a keyboard shielded from view and strange, difficult ways of doing things. To this day I haven't. Whether because of my early, possibly misguided training, or because catastrophic failure convinced me for good that I couldn't do it, I am not entirely decided.