Typists

 Hi there

above: old typewriter,  stock photo

Way back in the 1800s, there was a protest march through Manhattan.  By typists.  Or 'typewriters', as they were called in those days.

The protesting typists/typewriters were all men, objecting to women wanting to  take over this male role.  Oh goodness, when greedy bosses offered less salary to women than the salary that men were getting, the women snatched at the offers and the men got upset.

In the 1800s this takeover was definitely a triumph for women. It wasn't scrubbing floors, doing laundry, or being a house maid.  It was a break-through.  It was professional office work with better labour conditions - and, yes, better pay - than any maid-servant job could match.

So, women the world over became typists....

Now .. Think to the 1990s and the advent of computers into the women's typing haven.  Some business firms started calling typists 'word processors' (my typing pool even had that name put on a sign on our door, much to the hysterical laughter of the 'girls').

Then the job title changed again:  'data input operators' ...

And men perked up their ears.  The modern guy didn't want to be a typist, with its 'girlie' implications but, hey, being someone who input data sounded masculine enough, right?

And as fast as the snap of fingers, men were rushing to become typists (oops, sorry, I mean Data Input Operators, or any other title that sounded as away from 'typist' as a word could get).

Full circle, people......?

In place of those naughty words...

 Hi there

Let me set the picture:  It's the 1960's, a government typing pool comprised of, say, a dozen typists.  When typing mistakes on (foolscap) paper are made, all that can be used to erase them is, well, an erasure (or a 'rubber' in that decade's vernacular).  Some typists would erase the mistake along with a sad sigh, others muttered  something angrily under their breath, citing that the job in question would have to be retyped.   Many typists shouted, "Fudge!"

At the age of 16, I didn't know that "Fudge!" represented a naughty word, but looking back, I'm surprised that noone told the typists off about using it.

During my early time in the pool, one typist did come up with my favourite typing exclamation phrase of all time:

"Oh, bunny rabbits and toadstools!"  

Thanks, Francie, that's a cute keeper.

Not perhaps as cute though as when I heard one annoyed lady on a reality show shout out, "For the love of little bunnies!".  I was in heaven over such a phrase.  I now use it all the time.  There's something about bunny rabbits ...

        cuteness overload?  Who cares if this isn't Easter?  Altogether now, "Ahhhhh.."

Books. And me as a kid...

 Hi there

Well, here is a photo of me at goodness-knows-what age? Nine?  Ten?  Younger? Was I in Wellington with my mum?  There were always street photographers down Manners Street.  They'd snap photos, hand you a card and you'd trot along to their studio to see the proof.

Or was I in New Plymouth?;  I lived in both Wellington and New Plymouth at about that age.

And I notice that I have library books in my basket.  New Plymouth was the real start of my discovering reading.  And it was Enid Blyton who did it.  At New Plymouth's Carnegie Library.

 My previous Newtown Library in Wellington had outlawed everything Blyton, except for the one book in which children staggered under burdens growing from their shoulders, each burden size representing things the child had done wrong.  Burdens could grow bigger by the day.

Anyway, thank goodness for the Carnegie Library.  I hoovered up those Blyton books, dozens and dozens of them.  I went to the library Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, right after school, cycling my little legs off to get home to start reading.  Darn it, why was I only allowed three books per visit?  

Enid Blyton was my awakening to reading  - 

LEARNING TO READ

I remember the look

of the unreadable page

the difficult jumble

& then the page

became transparent

& then the page

ceased to exist

at last I was riding this bicycle all by myself

     (by Cilla McQueen, NZ poet. Published in NZ School Journal)

I heart Cats

 Hi there

I love cats so much.  If I see one down the street I go all goo-y trying to pat the animal.  And crooning to it in baby language.  So embarrassing if a passerby stares at me quizzingly.

But let's talk about cat videos on You Tube.  How come I look at one video that leads to me looking at 'just one more', which leads to three, then four, then one hundred...  Me, I thought I was just addicted to Diet Coke but now it seems to be cat videos as well.  All cats:  zoomy ginger cats, fluffy cats, tabby cats, tuxedo cats, snobby cats, and not forgetting the thoroughly mischievous Siamese cat (RIP, my beautiful StarGirl).

I am such a softie.

above: StarGirl and me, when she was just a kitten.