My cousin would come to visit every summer. Mama was a school teacher, so she was a full-time “around-the-house-person” during the summer months. That made her available to keep us busy all day, every day! When we weren’t folding laundry, or sweeping the floor, or washing dishes, windows or something “that hasn’t been washed in a year,” we were writing letters, stories or poems & songs. We’d create our own crazy, non-sense rhymes & take turns singing in front of the mirror.

When school resumed, usually the day after Labor Day, my cousin would return to her nearby, rural home, & Mama went back to work. For the first few days of school, I didn’t have homework, so Mama would say, “If you don’t have any homework, write a letter.”

By the time I got in high-school, I fell in love with the typewriter. One day, Mama bought an electric typewriter! It was an “IMB Selectric!”

Now I’m really motivated!

(That’s all it took.)

I typed everything. I mastered the keys, like I enjoy the piano! I even made a little money typing for my friends…their reports, official- & cover-letters, or Resume’s.

Today, I still have that old typewriter. My granddaughter saw it, & asked, “Grandma, I see the keys, but how do you know what you’re typing?” 

“What do you mean?” I asked. She said, with a baffled look, “There’s no screen.“