Typing

By Bill Demastus

In high school back in the late 1950s I took a typing class. It was not the most popular class for young men to take, but in the interest of full disclosure the class was taught by a most attractive young teacher, not much older than myself. And, she asked me to take the class.

Did I mention that the class was scheduled the hour before lunch and this gorgeous lady told me that I would be excused at whatever time I finished the days typing assignment?

I discovered quickly that one could type with 10 fingers very easily and that I was pretty good at it.

Little did I know as a 16-year-old this class would one day land me in a very cushy job in Uncle Sam’s Army and, years later, be the catalyst behind a job interview with the company where I would spend the next 39 years of my life. As one of the leaders in this company I was afforded a lifestyle that few 16-year-old boys could imagine.

But I digress.

I am writing this article not to explain my high school curriculum or how fate stepped in to use a typing skill to provide a wonderful career. I am writing this to quote one sentence that I learned in that typing class that has stuck with me all these many years. This sentence was a practice typing line that students repeated over and over on the old Underwood typewriters the school provided.

Evidently, this sentence required the typist to be capable of using both hands and all fingers on those hands and was a precursor to the quick brown fox thing.

The sentence is: Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

Obviously, this simple sentence means a lot more today than it did in that young beautiful teacher’s typing class.

Today, I might be tempted to change the sentence to read, “Now it is imperative that all good men and women come to the aid of their country.”

As an old guy who has made more than 80 trips around the sun I have been exposed to many things. I have witnessed many things. I have watched a world explode in technology, and medical miracles, and watched the American people become the most generous and beloved people of this world. I have watched and participated as young men and women went gladly to defend liberty and human rights all over the globe in service of our country.

I have never seen anything to equal what I see happening in our America. I keep thinking that when I wake up tomorrow it will all be over, and we will be back in a world that is rational and sane.

I also know that thought is a dream that will never happen. We must come together as a nation and take back our liberties and our freedoms. Not by force. Surely, the Civil War taught us that Americans killing Americans was not the way to solve issues in such a blessed land.

We must do it at the polls. We must do it by enforcing laws that are already in place but being ignored. We must be rational. We must be willing to listen to one another. We must not be afraid to stand and speak. We must. We must!

Go to the polls in every election but, before you do, educate yourself on the issues and on the people on the ballot.

Vote for God! Vote for Life! Vote for the things that made America the envy of the world. Staying home on election day is voting to light the fuse that will destroy this beautiful dream that our forefathers and founders died to establish.

Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their country!