Too old to learn?

When I was 16, and in grade 11, I decided that I would take typing to fill in a blank space on my school schedule. At that time boys were just beginning to take girl's courses such as cooking, sewing and secretarial stuff. We were propheticly told that one day in the distant future boys would have to use typing skills. Of course I didn't believe it, but I thought typing would be a lark (and there would be a lot of girls in my class)

The truth was that this typing stuff was difficult for me. I couldn't get past the point of looking at the keyboard that I was using. I remember well typing the useless phrases "ug jug ug jug" a thousand or so times on my manual typewriter, and my teacher coming around to cover my eyes with a white piece of paper. By Christmas he took my typewriter away and gave me one with nothing written on the keys. That was when I decided I could never be a secretary! I quit typing and took a study hour instead. Good move as far as I was concerned.

After graduation I went to Bible school. Of course most people did not have the luxury of owning a typewriter so all papers were written by hand. That was fine by me. When I started at Canfor, we didn't have computers--there was one in the downtown main office that filled a 20 by 16 foot room and had 2 full time air conditioners to keep it cool. So secretaries did all word processing. No man would actually type!

In 1979 I started our church, Northside Chapel at the time. I purchased a selectric type writer, the newest invention, and learned to type our bulletins myself. Susan would help when she could spare the time but I actually enjoyed the process on my new typewriter in my new office. I thought "I guess this is what pastors do." Thankfully, within a couple of years we were able to hire a part time secretary along with a couple of volunteers. After that day in about 1981, I never had to type again. I slipped back into my comfortable rut of writing by hand. Whether writing a letter or a book I learned to think through a pen and paper

Then a few years ago I got my first cell phone. In retrospect that began my regressive slide down to the place where I am now, typing my own blog. It began subtly enough. First it was learning to use the text option on my phone. Then I moved to a blackberry and began for the first time sending emails. Meanwhile my friend Bev Huston said to me "You should have a blog." "What in the world is a blog?" I responded. She then assured me that she would do all the work for me, I could just write my thoughts by hand and she would type and post it. Needless to say, here I am back in time, to 1963 learning to type. Bev and her family have moved to Tumbler Ridge (wherever that is!) and my friend Sarah is standing on the sidelines cheering "Come on Barry I know you can do it!" This is my first solo blog. I'm thinking about quitting and taking a study block!