An Influential Gift, A Lifelong Hobby

One of the most influential toys I had as a child was a Christmas gift: a little rotary printer with moveable rubber type and an inked roller.

I’d set the type into little metal rails that were then fastened to the drum of the printer, put in paper, and turn the crank.

Voilà! A printed page would come out. I was fascinated.

Some friends of my parents owned a printing business, and their son gave me a tour of the premises. Yeah, I was enthralled.

Later in high school I found myself in typing class, the only boy in a room full of girls, thinking, “Why am I learning this? Typing is for girls.”

Wrong. Oh, so spectacularly wrong. All the full-time jobs I have ever had my entire life have heavily involved typing.

When I was in college I worked as a reporter for a tabloid weekly newspaper, and of course that involved a typewriter, as well as exposure to their phototypesetting machine.

Again, I was mesmerized. I learned about type fonts, serifs, kerning, leading, and mysterious characters on the typesetter keyboard I’d never heard of such as EM SPACE, EN SPACE, EN DASH and EM DASH.

Incidentally, Alice found employment at the same newspaper as a typesetter.

Much later I was introduced to desktop publishing with computers and inkjet or laser printers. That became a bit of an obsession, as well as a hobby.

And of course, my programming career involved typing galore. Nowadays I publish a weekly activities calendar here at Ye Olde Folks Home. It’s great fun.