When I was in grad school in the mid-’80s, my husband bought me an “electronic typewriter.” I had many papers to write and was very happy that this monstrous machine would make my life easier. I had two young daughters, so I did all my work after I put them to bed. I would start typing, and lo and behold I would made a mistake. I had to use correction liquid or correction tape. Invariably, the tape did not cover the entire letter or the liquid looked like a mound of white with a letter embedded in it. As I am a perfectionist, neither was acceptable to me. I had to rip the entire page out and start again. Imagine when this happened in the last line of the page.

I am writing this on my iPad, which enables me to type quickly, before a thought escapes my mind. Errors are underlined in red, and all I have to do is put my finger on an error and choose the correct replacement. What a pleasure! No, there is not a bit of nostalgia about a hunk of metal that did not bend when I made an error.