I type very fast, almost violently. I have Miss Riley to thank for that.

I'm just old enough to have taken a typing class back in high school.

On a typewriter.

They don't teach typing anymore that I know of, largely because kids are keyboarding from very young ages and generally become proficient typists on their own.

But back in 1984 when I was a freshman, there was such a class as typing, and it was taught by Miss Riley.

She was a sweet older woman who insisted on proper technique: Curved fingers, hands on the home row (A-S-D-F for the left hand, J-K-L-; for the right hand), etc. We practiced typing various sentences from a typing textbook.

If you're a young person reading this, it probably sounds like something from the Middle Ages. And technologically speaking, it may as well have been.

Now, let me say in my defense that these were electric typewriters we used. I have older friends who learned on manual typewriters, so I'm not that ancient.

Still, if you watch me type, you would assume I learned on a manual typewriter because I absolutely pound the keys.

People used to walk by my office at work (this is true) and ask, "Are you OK?" They would hear me banging away and assume I was taking out my aggression on the computer keyboard.

The positive result of it all is that I type really, really fast. And pretty accurately, too.

I also tend to go through keyboards quicker than most people.

But rest assured, I'm not angry. I'm just a violent typer.