September 15 – “What’s a typewriter?”

 

 

Speaking of time, I spent a few hours yesterday organizing some files from way back in the 80's.  That was when I was a minister of education.  One of the things I did every week was prepare a suggested lesson plan for all the adult Sunday School teachers.  It included a word study and copies of related resource articles as well as a sample actual lesson plan.  Then each Wednesday I would teach the teachers using the plan.  They could then use or adjust or completely discard the plan for their class on Sunday.  I still have old hard copies of several years of those lesson plans.  I had one complete set that taught through the Book of Luke, but I lost that stack back in Hurricane Ike.  So yesterday I sorted and sifted through the rest to see what I had that might make for a good Pastor's Class type study for Sunday mornings before worship at Seaside.  There seemed to be some good possibilities. 

 

I was struck by the thought, though, that I sure have become a lot more dependent on technology than I was back then.  A lot of the studies are written by hand.  What a horrifying thought.  Some were done on an old computer I had that would only work with one of those old printers that had a carriage arm that moved back and forth across the page like a typewriter gone amok.  Oh, what's a typewriter? 

 

It's a contraption that we used to use where the keyboard function and print function were synched to occur simultaneously with each other.  It eliminated the need for a screen, because each letter of the text was instantly transferred to the paper for the hard copy.  Sounds like quite an advance in technology when put that way.  The only problem was that … each letter of the text was instantly transferred to the paper for the hard copy.  There was no opportunity to see which key you struck before it printed on the page.  If you made a mistake you had to either start over again or use a brilliant creation called whiteout.  It was like white paint that you could use to cover up the error and strike another key letter right over the top of it.  Amazing stuff.  Another option was a strip of tape coated on one side with some kind of white substance that transferred to the page.  All you had to do was line up the offending letter, place the tape next to the page, strike the key again, and watch it disappear.  Ah, nostalgia.

 

Proverbs 25:27 says, "It is not good to eat too much honey, nor is it honorable to seek one's own honor."

 

Father, give me some of your wisdom to choose what study to do and when to begin it.  Amen.