Typewriting (aka Typing) War Stories (1/30/26)

I just communicated with a GHS60 Alumnus about my typewriting journey, started in HS at the insistence of my mother who was a secretary. Here is the communication, somewhat pared down:

I took typing in HS, I believe it was called personal typing. I got reasonably proficient. 

After HS, I went in the Army and had one other opportunity to develop my typing skills. I joined the Army Reserve with 12 classmates from GHS. We were offered the opportunity to stay together for the six months of active duty for training (Basic and some advanced) if we agreed to go into Advanced Infantry Training (AIT). So, my mother responded to a Colonel who wrote a serial form-type letter to all parents about what training we were getting. She responded on Office of the President stationery because she was the secretary for the President of Abney Mills. (Not only did the stationery say that, but in fact my mother shared the same physical office as the President and did that for the 20+ years she was there.) In any event, the Colonel must have thought I was important, because he came out into the field to meet me during Basic Training. I had no idea why he did that, but he did ask whether I might prefer going into some other Army specialty such as clerk typist rather than AIT. I declined, saying that I wanted to stay with my buddies in AIT. If I had accepted that offer, I would have honed my typing skills beyond the high school experience.

I also took typing in college in the business school at USC (after going on active duty in the Army in 1960). Just one semester. As I recall, I was the only male in the class, so that was a positive. I may have marginally increased my typing skills in that class.

So, I came out of college as a reasonable typist. 

While in college, I did Army Reserve duty in Columbia with a JAG unit. About the only typing I did was to type up the paperwork for my promotions for the Colonel to sign. 

I also received court reporter training at the Naval Justice School in Rhode Island. Although we used "monkey masks" to repeat into a recorder everything that went on in the mock courtroom, we then had to type up the recording in standard transcript format. Given the rigor of that training, good typing skills were required.

One college anecdote. At USC, I was a history major requiring a senior thesis. In the history department, the senior thesis was a big deal. I consulted with my favorite history teacher about the topic; that teacher then reviewed the thesis, including three or maybe four rounds of drafts. (He was a very exacting professor who worked hard and expected his students to work hard as well.) I turned in my first draft in handwriting. I went to his office for the review. I knocked on the door. He asked me to come in, close the door, and sit down. As I was closing the door and sitting down, he asked me “Mr. Townsend, do you know what I think of when I see sloppy handwriting?” I responded “No, sir.” He said “A sloppy mind.” I got the point.  (Actually given the tone of his question, I could have made a good guess; but as a side note, he had already graded me A on two examinations I took in handwriting, so he must have gotten over my horrible handwriting.) My later drafts were typewritten. My thesis won the outstanding senior thesis award for that year. That award was based on the content, rather than the typewritten presentation, but the typewritten presentation may have helped at the margins.

I always used that anecdote at the start of each class I taught at University of Houston Law School. I urged students to write legibly or, better still, type their answers (first on typewriters and later on laptop computers who are now ubiquitous in law schools). I told them that, as a lawyer, their greatest skill is communicating to clients, judges, juries, and others. If they are communicating in handwriting and their handwriting is “sloppy,” they either are not communicating at all or they are making the reader work too hard making the communication less effective than it could be.

Still, over the 20+ years I taught in law school, I always had some students turn in handwritten exams. I had my assistant type up the handwritten exams. She was pretty good to getting the words, syntax, grammar, etc., exactly as the student wrote in handwriting, but she was pretty good at getting it right as the student had written it in sloppy handwriting. I then graded the typed-up exams so that I would not count off, knowingly or unknowingly, for sloppy handwriting.

On a similar note, when I made handwritten notes (not often once I could use my computer or laptop to type notes), my handwriting was so bad that even I could often not read it. My secretary would have to type those notes up also or at least read to me the part that I could not read.

Also, another typing story. When I started at DOJ Tax Division Appellate Section in 1969, I requested a typewriter (I believe an IBM Selectric). No one in the Appellate Section had requested one before. They all drafted briefs and memos and had secretaries type them, often multiple times. After some commotion with the powers in the Section, I got the typewriter. I always finalized my drafts in typewritten format. I didn’t worry about how clean the typed draft was (I made some slight corrections in handwriting on the typed page). I then told the secretaries that, if they returned to me in final the draft I gave them, I would let it go without further corrections. (By contrast, the attorneys drafting in handwriting almost always had secretaries prepare multiple drafts (sometimes as many as 10) until finalized.) My system was much more efficient, but did require basic typewriting skills which most lawyers then did not have. (Lawyers and law students since have had to become somewhat proficient in typewriting, hence eliminating the need for so many secretaries.)

I also had typing adventures during so-called "proffer sessions" where my client was grilled by U.S. Attorneys in criminal investigations. I always took my laptop into the sessions and employed my court reporting training (although I had to "record" by typing rather than a monkey mask). The two FBI and/or IRS agents who participated to take notes took them in handwriting. In the only case where my client ended up indicted, I was able to get the notes the two agents had handwritten; they were woefully inadequate compared to my typewritten notes on the computer. Although one of the US Attorney accused my client of lying during the session (a la Martha Stewart), they did not indict for that and, despite their allegations in the proffer session, could not have indicted on the woefully inadequate agent notes. Although I never gave the prosecutors my notes which were mostly verbatim, my notes would have blown them out of the water compared to their notes. I never told them that I had court reporter training.