MUSHY'S MOOCHINGS: LEARNING LESSONS THE HARD WAY

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

LEARNING LESSONS THE HARD WAY


Back in 1962, Mushy had no idea his decision to take typing classes would serve him well in his career, not to mention BLOGDOM.

All he really wanted was to be where the pretty girls were! I guess chasing the pretty girls profited me some after all!

Did you ever make life-changing decisions over boys or girls in school?

My granddaughter is right in the middle of this time today, and will not listen to my free advice. As my daughter once said, “I guess I have to learn the hard way.” Why do we always do that? Why do we always think we are smarter than those that trod the same roads before us?

Update 07/13/17:

I was going over my past employment, with nothing much else going on, and I realized that typing in high school helped me more than a degree from UT.

When I came back from Vietnam they sent me to Sewart Air Force Base, near Smyrna, TN. When I reported to the First Sergeant's office, he was raising cane about the need for someone who could type. He turned and looked at me and said, "Can you type?"

Well, I spent my last year and a half in an air conditioned office processing ...traffic violations instead of standing in the heat and cold waving cars through the main gate.


For the rest of my life, I had jobs that required writing and typing; advertising manager at both the Harriman Record and The Roane County News, writing procedures and RFPs for Union Carbide and Lockheed Martin, and finally organizing an IT department for Bechtel Jacobs, etc.

All these opportunities would not have presented themselves had it not been for Ms. Robinson's typing classes (2 years) at South Harriman High School.

13 comments:

*Goddess* said...

I love learning about hard things!

Oh, wait, I think I read that post wrong....

BRUNO said...

Amazing! The same exact reason I took typing---and the teacher wasn't no old-crow, either! Amazing what us men can learn, given the proper incentives! All the "real-men/boys" ragged me about takin' a "wussy" class! I've yet to regret it! I think I averaged 85 wpm on a manual, ain't sure! Kept the teacher happy! And if SHE was happy, then, hey, go figure---!

FHB said...

Took typing, but they couldn't get me to stop looking at my fingers, like I'm doing now. Two fingers goin' strong. Ha.

Marie said...

I took wood shop, just to be a little feminista.

I've often said the most useful skill I learned in public school was typing.

Lana said...

I took typing and flunked out.
LMAO.
I took woodshop and passed with flying colors. Maybe I was not meant to type.

Jose said...

Darn man you have to stop reading me, I too enrolled in the typing class in the 9th grade, that was my intro to typing, then in high school I took beginning, intermediate and advance typing. I was the only guy in the class and was faster than many of the girls. I told a friend of mine and he enrolled too, we were the only two fools in typing but we loved it and all the girls got to know us and that was just fine with us. Everything that the computer does automatically for us now we used to do manually on our IBMs. Yeah I agree with Marie in saying typing was the most useful skill learned in high school. To this day I can type by touch and that makes my bloggin' faster.

Anonymous said...

The older I get the smarter I get. And the more I understand just how stupid I was as a teen/young adult. It is always that way, unfortunately.

Becky said...

I think we always have to learn the hard way because we always think we're right, not to mention that we tend to trust our instincts for personal decisions.

I made a life-changing decision to move from Dallas to San Antonio to be with my now-Ex. Yeah...that paid off:)

phlegmfatale said...

It's all the evil influence of hormones - they addle the wits and make drooling vegetables of us all, at one time or another. Hence the importance of long engagements.

a faith bigger than fear said...

Well, I too took typing, faired ok, but did much better in wood shop, go figure. I even went to Business school and took on to be a Legal Secretary, the typing helped...but my love still goes deeper for wood working! Again, go figure...

Here I am, 45 and still learning things the hard way, my daughter will not listen to me and insists on learning things the hard way too... and she's 19 in a relationship that's going no-where.

fuzzbert_1999@yahoo.com said...

Well, I learned 3 things from this post:

1. A lot of girls took shop and love working with wood.

2. That we are all alike in this world, that's one thing I love about blogging...you find you aren't differnet.

3. Goddess stays horney!

NotClauswitz said...

I never got much past about 14 wpm - looking away from the keys makes me nauseous and I have to take Drammamine.

fuzzbert_1999@yahoo.com said...

I actually got somewhere between 45 and 50 words at one time, but couldn't move any faster. Now, I probably would net about 10 words and 20 mistakes. You notice I don't misspell a lot, but I leave out words and use the wrong word lots!