The Making Of The Hometown View

The other day I was introduced to someone who wanted to know how I come up with something every morning for this segment and whether I write it well in advance of when you hear it. 

I said there are many mornings in which I stare at the computer screen with my fingers resting on the keyboard desperately looking for the words which will fill my 2 ½ minutes of air time.  Often something finally comes to me late and I scramble to take those words and develop something coherent.

My typing skills are not quite as sharp as they should be considering I took Mr. Fleming’s typing class while at Central Regional High School.  However since the statute of limitations has long since passed I can confess to some less than noble behavior while a student in that class.  In case you have not figured it out yet I have nothing for this morning and this will fall into the category of “filler.”

I’m sure it’s been a long time since typing was something they taught in high school because nobody uses a typewriter any more.  We actually have one in our newsroom and I can tell you that it was mine and last used a long time ago.  Anyway let me get back to typing class which I think was something I took my senior year although it might have been the year before.

Bob Fleming was a pretty cool teacher and a big basketball fan.  Years later while working at WOBM I would talk quite a bit about his son Chris, the greatest player in Lacey High School history who would go on to have a terrific career at the University of Richmond before playing professionally in Europe.  Today Chris is a very successful head coach of a team in Germany that has won its league championship along with the German Cup for three straight years.

Anyway back to typing class.  I realized quickly that I was not very good at being able to type without looking at the keys which is really what the class was all about.  I would watch other students (mostly girls) hit those keys at a frantic pace while I was doing the hunt and peck.  Anyway the big thing in the class was each Friday we would have a test in which we had to type something in a specific amount of time.  Knowing I could not complete the assignment in the allowed time I would casually begin typing while Mr. Fleming was going over the instructions…in other words I got a head start.  My classmate Jan Cahill would tease me years later about this.

Long story short….I got through the class and actually learned enough that I credit my somewhat fairly decent skills with allowing me to be productive when it comes to what I do today.  By the way, Mr. Fleming is retired with his wife in Virginia and I’d appreciate it if you would keep this between us.