Making Weight

By Mike Zorick

Did you ever wonder what it's like to be blind? This book is about the life of a 65-year-old blind athlete. There will be happy stories, sad stories, and funny stories and there will be problems and their solutions. In order to get the full meaning of this book, the reader must keep in mind the fact that a problem could never be solved unless it is brought to the surface, exposed, and it wouldn't hurt if there were a solution. The intent of this book is to educate the sighted world regarding situations as they relate not only to blind people, but also to all society.

In many cases, the blind must be overly aggressive and take the risk of being judged as pushy. Even then, they still get very few opportunities. As it stands, 70% of blind adults in this country are unemployed. Hopefully, this book will do something to change that situation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Zorick
• Release date: Oct 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301971381

Mike Zorick

Mike Zorick, blind since birth, was born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a three time California State Champion in Greco-Roman wrestling at 114 lb. He was a six time national placer in the open Greco-Roman wrestling including two seconds, two thirds and two fourths. He also won the Veterans' Folk style wrestling twice at 152 lb. In all these tournaments, he was the only blind competitor. He has won many awards in wrestling, long distance running, Judo and weight lifting. He ran two marathons in Hawaii. He finished writing his autobiography, "Making Weight".

Book preview

Making Weight

by Mike Zorick

with illustrations by Nancy Noble Zorick

Copyright 2013 Mike Zorick

Published by Mike Zorick at Smashwords

This book is available at most online retailers.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Forward

Chapter 1. The Beginning Times

Chapter 2. School Days

Chapter 3. The Sighted Neighborhood and Blind Myths

Chapter 4. Academics and Occupation

Chapter 5. Big Turning Point in Life

Chapter 6. Starting to Run

Chapter 7. A Date with a Psychiatrist

Chapter 8. Crossroads

Chapter 9. The First Nationals

Chapter 10. Living Alone

Chapter 11. Overcoming Injury

Chapter 12. First Blind Olympics

Chapter 13. Florida

Chapter 14. Shaping Up

Chapter 15. The Big Mistake

Chapter 16. Severe Neck Injury

Chapter 17. The Greco-Roman Nightmare

Chapter 18. The Big Race

Chapter 19. The Final Olympic Trails

Chapter 20. The New Track Club

Chapter 21. Speaking at Schools

Chapter 22. The Canadian Disaster

Chapter 23. Working at Jefferson Middle School

Chapter 24. Tryout for a Game Show

Chapter 25. The Final Blind Nationals

Chapter 26. The Perfect Job

Chapter 27. The Battle of the Survivors

Chapter 28. Writing to Private Schools

Chapter 29. Update and Beyond

Chapter 30. Nancy's Point of View

Chapter 31. Why Write

The Blessed A poem by Mike's mother

Appendix 1 - Images of Mike & Nancy and their Special Friends

Appendix 2 - Images recording special events in Mike's and Nancy's Lives

Appendix 3 - Letters from Kids who were able to hear Mike's Story

Forward

Did you ever wonder what it's like to be blind? This book is about the life of a 65-year-old blind athlete. There will be happy stories, sad stories, and funny stories and there will be problems and their solutions. In order to get the full meaning from this book, the reader must keep in mind the fact that a problem could never be solved unless it is brought to the surface, exposed, and it wouldn't hurt if there were a solution. The intent of this book is to educate the sighted world regarding situations as they relate not only to blind people, but also to all society.

In many cases, the blind must be overly aggressive and take the risk of being judged as pushy. Even then, they still get very few opportunities. As it stands, 70% of blind adults in this country are unemployed. Hopefully, this book will do something to change that situation.

All Illustrations by Nancy Zorick

CHAPTER 1

The Beginning Times

My mother told me this story. One day, when Mike was a one-year-old, he was holding on to a table. I invited him to walk across the room to me. He was crying because there was no way for him to know if the way was clear. I tried to sound happy and confident as I urged him to walk towards me. He couldn't see my own tears as they fell from my face. He was crying all the way to me. He made it across the room by trusting me. It was hard for him to put faith in me and then others, but it was a lesson that he had to learn. Who would have guessed that I would become a long-distance runner later in life? Trusting partners is necessary in order for me to run fast on unfamiliar streets and courses. For many years, running has been my favorite activity.

In the late spring of 1979, I met Carl Allen; he is a good running partner and a great friend. At the time, Carl and I lived in Los Angeles. My participation in races inspired Carl to run faster and train harder. The next year I married Nancy Noble and we moved to Indio, California. Even though Carl and I now live 140 miles apart, we still run races together. One day at a race Carl brought up getting a partner and running a race blind folded. Right away, this experiment interested me. How much slower would Carl run? Would he be tentative? Would he take the blind fold off early in the race? As questions entered my mind and time passed, my curiosity grew rapidly. This idea came up many times during the next five years. My trust in partners amazed Carl. He wondered if anyone could lead him around cones, curbs, over railroad tracks and around parked cars. The more he mentioned these concerns the greater his fear became. In the final analysis, Carl never ran such a race. This doesn't mean that he lacks courage. Since he can run by himself, it's not necessary for him to trust a partner. I'm sure it was common sense that made him decide not to run the race blind folded. These discussions made Carl think deep and long of what it must be like for me to run a race. We were laughing about it one day, when he said, If I had to run a race blind folded, as soon as the gun went off I'd jump on my partner's back.

My name is Peter Michael Zorick. Since my father's name is Peter, I go by the name Mike, which everybody calls me. I was born April 3, 1947, three months premature and weighing less than three pounds. In those days, doctors believed 100% oxygen in the incubator was necessary to keep premature babies alive. It was this overdose of oxygen that ruined my eyes. My parents, Peter and Edna remained hopeful for years that my blindness was not a permanent condition. Meanwhile, they were resolved to accept and make the best of my situation.

One doctor said that my eyes should be taken out because they might cause problems later in life. My father said absolutely not because then there would be no hope for me to ever see. My parents always encouraged me to learn as much as possible, either by touching things or through verbal direction so that I would know something about the things I was missing because of my lack of sight. Urgently, they wanted me to lead a normal life. When my brother Ronnie was born in September of 1949, he was neither premature nor blind.

I was about seven years old when doctors in England learned that incubator babies were going blind because of getting too much oxygen. People began suing the hospitals, and some even won their cases. My parents did look in this direction in hopes of winning a measure of security for me. Again, the circumstances of my birth proved untimely: As the home base of the insurance industry, Connecticut had a five-year statute of limitations. My understanding is that New York had a 21 year statute of limitations, and some states have no statute of limitations at all.

Something I remember from my preschool days: I was taught to stand up for my beliefs. Because I was so small as well as sightless, my father taught me how to fight at an early age. I was also taught never to start a fight, and never to let my opponent finish it. My father knew I would have to deal with the big bullies. He told me that when a kid gives up, I should not stop fighting right away. If I quit when the kid gives up, he will be after me the next day. I must make him not want to fight me again.

Outside of the many punching fights, there were four fights that I really remember. The first one was when I was 11 years old. It was the spring of 1958. It rained for several days. I had been out for a short walk around the block and was one house away from home. Someone had put bikes and wagons across the sidewalk to block me so that I'd have to walk in the muddy grass. Somebody pushed me in the back, and I fell on my right elbow. The guy tried to run away, but I reached back with my left hand and just barely grabbed his leg and pulled him down. It turned out to be the neighborhood bully. After he was down, I put him in a head-lock with my left hand, and I pulled a little strand of his hair. When he screamed, I picked up a hand full of mud with my right hand and put it down his throat. After taking my right hand out of his mouth, I then took that hand and closed his jaw so that he would swallow the mud. He wanted to give up after the second mouthful. However, I did this six times. He was crying, spitting and choking. I told him that I didn't want to hurt him again, but if he came after me again, the next time would be worse. It was never necessary for me to fight him again. If I had not caught him, he surely would have come after me the next day. Evidently, some of the neighborhood kids must have seen that fight. Whenever the bully picked on the other kids, they would tell him, Why don't you pick on Mike, mud mouth? After that, he stopped being a bully.

One day in the dining room, a student sitting behind me turned around and grabbed two of my fingers. He started pulling them apart. I punched his wrist hard. He had to loosen his grip. Later, he came after me on the playground. He started pushing me down a hill. At the bottom of this hill was a flight of concrete steps. He weighed 165 pounds, and I weighed 103. Because of his weight advantage, I couldn't push him up the hill. As we got close to the steps, I punched his right arm hard with my left fist. I felt his right arm cave in. He fell down, and his screams could be heard all over the playground.

At the time, I didn't know why he started the fight. I thought he had mistaken me to be somebody else. I later learned that he had emotional problems, and he had a tendency to become violent. He stayed at our school for only a few months. This happened during the winter of 1963.

My third memorable fight was in the summer of 1967. My mother, brother and I were on a bus. We were coming home from down town. We had to stand because all the seats were taken. I was hanging on to the post when a guy pushed me in the chest hard. I realized that there was the danger of my falling and being trampled. I grabbed his arms and shook him hard. He said nothing, and his body went limp. He gave me no resistance. We went a few blocks past his stop when I eventually let him go. After he left there was a place for me to sit. I didn't know until later that there were still people standing and that a woman had given me her seat. Apparently, she was impressed with what I had done.

The last fight was about one month later. I was walking round the block. There were a group of five guys. As I was walking up a hill, the traffic was on my left side. The guys were surrounding me, and I heard one say, Let's jump that blind guy. When the group got really close, I hit one in the face with my left fist, and another was hit in the face with my right elbow. The two were rolling on the ground in pain. I said, The next person that touches me will be knocked out and thrown into the intersection of the street. The others left me alone, and I walked away.

CHAPTER 2

School Days

I went to the Oakhill School for the Blind. This school had grades kindergarten through 12. Since we lived close to the school, I could go home every day. Some of the kids who lived far away had to come on Sunday night, and they went home Friday afternoon. There were about ten kids in each class.

I ended up at an early age being tested to stand up for my beliefs. During kindergarten the teacher, Mrs. White, wanted the kids to play in the sandbox. I couldn't stand that dirty sand, so I went off in a corner by myself to play with a ball. Playing with balls was always fun for me. Mrs. White asked me if I'd like to play in the sandbox with the other kids. Of course, I told her no and continued playing with the ball on the other side across the room. She left me to go back to the other kids. I felt that it was okay for me to play with the ball. Somebody made a mess on the floor with the sand, and the teacher said, Oh look at the mess that Mike made. I said that I didn't know who was more blind, the teacher or the students. The kids all laughed and the teacher got frustrated. I didn't mean to be rude, but blaming me made me see that she had bad intent. My speaking up made me feel more confident, and therefore, I had no fear of bad authorities at that early age. When she told my parents, they were on my side. They knew I'd never go near the sandbox on my own. Because of my honesty, my parents didn't punish me. No doubt this sandbox incident contributed to my having to repeat kindergarten. I did have a much better teacher for my second year of kindergarten.

Another incident was in the dining room, in the spring of 1954. It was a Monday. We were having liver and onions for lunch. That horrible smell was all over the campus long before lunch time. Who could eat that junk, I wondered? This housemother was frightening. She'd hit the kids' knuckles with the handle of a butter knife if they wouldn't eat. She tried to make me eat it. I tried a variety of ways to stop her from feeding me. I tried squirming; knocking the silverware out of her hand and nothing seemed to work. As my squirming continued, she grabbed me harder. It seemed like just a matter of time before I lost. Soon I was unable to wiggle. She was leaning over me with her hands tight against my chest. Suddenly, without thinking I picked up the plate and turned it upside down on the back of her head. Liver, onions and mashed potatoes spilled all over her. Knowing that this problem was solved made me feel very relieved. However, that relief was short lived. I wondered if my actions would create an even worse punishment for me. She angrily said that she was going to tell my parents. I said that if she didn't tell them, I would. She did tell my parents. My parents told her that it wasn't necessary for me to eat anything I didn't like. I got plenty to eat at home.

This incident changed my life permanently. I was fighting this mean grown woman. At that time, my weight could not have been more than 35 pounds. Giving up was not an option for me. What were the odds of my winning this battle? Whenever I'm involved in a confrontation with someone where there seems to be no hope of me winning, my mind always goes back to the liver and onions. This gives me the courage to keep going and to be fearless of the consequences.

When someone in class would say something funny, I was always the one who couldn't stop laughing. It was impossible for me to sit still. It was being such a happy child that made me like this. I spent time in the hall for not being able to stop laughing. Nothing seemed to work. I tried biting my lips, but that didn't stop my laughing. I just ended up getting sore lips. This happened so often that my lips were sore for most of the school year. By the end of the year, my lips were looking forward to summer vacation as much as I was.

Could you imagine what it would be like to be totally lost and have no idea of your surroundings? It was a cold stormy winter afternoon in 1955. I was in school. It was time for me to go from one building to another. There was no reason to be concerned. Going from one building to another was never a problem for me in the past. This day would be different. It had been snowing for several hours. As a result, nothing was shoveled. As I stepped outside the building, my feet landed in deep snow. The snow continued to fall. After walking what seemed to be quite a distance, a sudden fear came over me. I was completely lost. My cautious steps in all directions were useless. I found no landmarks. Everything felt the same because it was covered by snow. The snow began to fall even harder and the temperature was dropping rapidly. My screams for help were heard by nobody. As time stood still, the whistling wind became louder and stronger. Soon the fear of death entered my mind. Will I ever be found? Will I die from my own fear, starvation, or freezing? Death seemed to be the only way out. I just stood there screaming, hoping that somebody would hear me. Shaken from cold and fear my body felt stripped. It was like being in the cold stormy wilderness where nothing was around for miles. The only sounds were the whistling wind and the falling snow.

Then at last, I felt a familiar hand. The school day had ended, and my father came to pick me up. I felt lucky to be alive. I got lost in the snow many times. Usually, teachers, friends, or strangers would find me shortly after I got lost. However, I would have one more frightening experience with snow in high school. This terrible experience at the age of seven had a lasting and major effect upon my life.

In 1968, I moved to California. Since then I have completely avoided snow. In February of 1992, there was a teaching job opportunity for me in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My unwillingness to face the snow prevented me from pursuing this opportunity. That wasn't the only job that my fear of snow stopped me from pursuing.

CHAPTER 3

The Sighted Neighborhood and Blind Myths

One common myth is that blind people could tell what someone looks like by touching faces. I don't know where this myth originated. My first reaction to this concept was laughing. Another common occurrence is when I go into a restaurant with a sighted person, and the waitress will ask him what I want. That still happens today. Part of the problem is the fact that I give no eye contact. When there is no eye contact, it becomes a new experience for a sighted person. When we went to restaurants, my parents would tell the waitress to ask me even though they knew what I wanted. After communicating with me, the waitress has no problem asking me what I want for dessert. Many times the waitress will ask the sighted people what they want. She would then leave without taking my order, and I'd have no idea that she left.

Sometimes people ask me what I see in my dreams. My dreams consist of four senses. I see nothing. Since I've never seen anything, I have no imagination as to how things look. I have a blind friend named Harry. He is also a long-distance runner. He was able to see until he was in his late teens. He asks people to describe the visual surroundings. This enables him to keep his visual memory. As a result, he can still remember how things look. He can even dream visually.

As far as recognizing voices are concerned, the situation of the person determines how long it will take me to learn his voice. If I talk to someone often, it won't take me long to recognize him. If I'm in a group and someone says hi to me, and I talk with that person a week or two later, I won't recognize him, even if he told me who he was when he said hi the last time. These people tend to think that I don't recognize them because their voices are hard to learn. This is because in a group situation, I hear many voices without knowing the identity of the people. I can only learn voices by hearing them, and I must be aware of their identity as I'm hearing them. I call that study time.

Many people say that blind individuals have better hearing than the people with all their senses. That may or may not be true. In order to know for sure you'd have to know how well the blind person could hear if he had sight all his life. I don't see how that could be proven one way or the other.

Since I can't write with a pen or pencil, it is impossible for me to take down phone numbers or addresses while I'm out. This forces me to have a better memory. Obviously, I'm not going to carry around a clumsy Braille writer or typewriter.

When I was growing up, the kids were playing checkers and baseball. Naturally, I had to do that also. Braille checkers have round and square shapes. The red checkers were round and the square ones black. If someone gets a king, the checker is turned over. One side has a hole in it. There are ridges in the board so that I can feel the spaces. I could never play the regular checker game because the board is very smooth, and all the checkers are the same shape. Therefore, I can't feel the spaces.

I became a good checker player. My father taught me how to play. I could beat the sighted kids. We had checker tournaments for high school kids at the school for the blind. There were eight players in the tournament, and each series was the best two out of three. The person with the best record won the tournament. Everyone played seven opponents. The most a person could win is 14 games. I was the champ all four years, and my record was 56 wins and 2 losses. Two of the years, my record was 14 and 0. The other two years, my record was 14 and 1. I lost the second game of the finals and won the first and third.

My father taught me how to pitch and swing the bat. I learned how to pitch and bat with both hands. The first time I wanted to play baseball I just wanted to be a steady pitcher. We didn't have too many kids and having me pitch for both sides would give each team an extra fielder. The kids didn't want me to play because they felt that I would walk everybody. Since I couldn't talk the kids into letting me play, it was necessary for me to force the issue. One kid was pounding the bat on the ground, and I walked towards the sound. I took the bat out of the kid's hand. I brought the bat back pretending to hit somebody. The kids ran across the field, Whoever is on my team is up first, I said. All of a sudden, all the kids wanted me on their team. In most cases hitting the ball for me was pure luck. We had a modified way for me to hit so that I wouldn't strike out all the time. Three foul balls were a strike out. I had an unlimited amount of swings and misses. Ronnie, my brother would pitch to me, and he'd try to throw the ball to my bat. I was a switch hitter. However, I was able to hit the ball a little bit further batting left handed. We played whiffle ball, soft ball and hard ball. The whiffle ball made a whistling sound. However, I couldn't pick up the sound fast enough to react when I was swinging the bat. Pitching was more fun for me. I knew that the plate was straight ahead of the pitcher's mound. Usually the catcher would clap or the batter would hit the bat on the ground so that I could hear where to throw the ball. I worked hard on my pitching, because walking people really bothered me. The batter had to hit his way on base. He had to earn it. The catcher, instead of throwing the ball back to me, would roll it.

In the summer, I would pitch every day and play catch with a hard ball once a week with Ronnie. This would help me to work on my control, and he would roll the ball back to me. During the winter time, I would go upstairs at home, stand in the hallway, and throw an ear syringe 100 times with each hand into the bathtub. I did this five times a week throwing the pitches hard. When the spring came my arms were in mid-season form. Ronnie didn't swing a bat for six months. He had to be rusty.

I always anticipated pitching a shutout every opening day. Ronnie was a great hitter and a terrific outfielder. Making him swing and miss was almost impossible. Sometimes he would hit a home run on opening day. That would really upset me. When we came in to eat after the game, I'd think of the few pitches that he swung at and missed. Playing with somebody with so many abilities made me a better pitcher. Otherwise, I'd never get him out.

One day, a teacher talked about how hard it is for blind people to get jobs. This was about the time I started playing baseball. She said that the blind person would have to be much better if he expected to get the job. This is because we live in a sighted world. Her message was very helpful to me since it made me very competitive. I took my intensity out on the sighted kids while playing baseball. I kept track of my daily pitching statistics, including innings pitched, hits allowed, runs given up, earned runs, walks, and strike outs. I would write down my statistics at the end of each day. My average was ten strike outs and one walk every nine innings. When Ronnie and I were on the same team, we never lost. We had rules: every ground ball was an out, every high pop up and high fly ball into the outfield was automatic outs. Line drives deep in the outfield were hits depending on where they landed.

One day, a group of kids were playing baseball at the playground. I was batting left handed. Unfortunately, this time I made contact. The ball was hit foul down the right-field line. Suddenly, there was a smashing sound. The ball went through a window. The people were eating supper at the time, and the ball landed right in the middle of the supper table. We had a hard time getting the ball back. It took much talking. After several minutes, we did finally get our ball back.

Another incident regarding baseball happened during the summer of 1963. We were playing hard ball. I was pitching left handed. I was facing a right-handed batter. I pitched a ball on the outside, hoping that he would try to pull it to get a home run. He would then hit a ground ball to second or short stop. Instead, he hit the ball where it was pitched trying for a single, and it hit my right shin. That really hurt me. Should I come out of the game? After dismissing that thought, the next batter came up. He was right handed. Would I pitch this batter the same way in order to get him out? Would that take more courage than I had? Should I pitch inside and possibly give up a home run so my body wouldn't get hit? As these questions entered my mind, my leg swelled up. It was my decision to stay out there and get the next batter out. When I play hard ball, the glove is kept up by my face. This keeps me from getting hit in the face. However, this left my lower body completely unprotected. The first pitch to the next batter was on the outside corner. He went with the pitch, and it hit me in exactly the same spot. I was surprised that the batter didn't try to pull the ball.

One day, in the spring of 1959, my playing with the kids was quite rough. I was throwing them on the ground. My intent was not to hurt the kids. Also we had a dog at that time. The same day I was throwing the dog across the room like he was a baseball. Instead of disciplining me, my parents tried to find out the reason for my rough behavior. It was my abundance of energy that made me play too rough. I wanted to wrestle. My father told me that every Saturday night we would wrestle if I didn't play too rough during the week. This deal really excited me! Every Saturday night my father and I wrestled even if we were visiting relatives. I didn't know all the wrestling rules. It sure was fun getting rid of all my energy. My father wrestled me until I was ready to drop. This ended my rough play with the neighborhood kids and the dog.

At the age of eight, I heard that someone died from shoveling snow. I wanted to know why he died. My parents said that he probably died from being inactive. They told me that it was important to be active in some sport, because there were things that my lack of sight would prevent me from doing. They told me that blind people had shorter life spans because normally they are less active than sighted people. As a result, I felt it was very important for me to be physically active. At the time, my physical activity was unknown.

I knew I'd find something. My parents were always there to help me and give encouragement. They also felt that it was important to always practice good habits. It was much easier to do things correctly and form good habits rather than to break bad habits. This concept made life easier.

CHAPTER 4

Academics and Occupation

My academic pattern was consistent with my early grades through high school. My best subjects were math, spelling, grammar, piano, music appreciation, gym, speech, and wood shop. These were the subjects that involved a good memory. Typing was another fun subject. I did not like the subjects that had a lot of reading. My favorite subject of all was gym class. One day, at the age of nine I climbed up to the top of the rope and called my gym teacher who was Mr. Farina. He came over thinking that I needed help getting down. I told him that I wanted to be a gym teacher when I grew up. In third grade, my piano lessons were taken away from me, in order to help me with my reading. Reading Braille hurt my fingers after a while. I hated to lose my piano lessons. Taking my piano away did not make me a better reader. I could read, but my reading was slower than the rest of the class. Some of the girls could read for long periods of time, and they read fast. I usually failed the subjects that had a lot of reading. It was hard for me to understand how some of the kids could read so fast and so long. I was really good at the subjects that involved memory. My grades in these subjects were usually As. As this consistent pattern made it easier for me to decide my occupation. At the time, two occupations were higher on my priority list than being a gym teacher. If I got my sight, what I wanted most was to box professionally or pitch for Boston. Hitting things was really fun for me, and I was a good fighter. Hitting the walls with my fists toughened my hands, helped get rid of energy and prevented me from hurting people. I was always a Boston fan and later on a Philadelphia fan, as well. At the beginning of the baseball season, the Philadelphia-Boston World Series would enter my mind. This probably won't happen in my life time. Both teams are a long way from being in the World Series. At the age of 12, the doctor told me that I would never see. The baseball and boxer dream went down the drain.

In fourth grade, we had a new subject called wood shop. The teacher, Mr. Rozek was totally blind. There were many dangerous machines in the room. The kids called Mr. Rozek Pop. He knew the machines like the back of his hand. He knew how to teach the blind kids to work these dangerous machines. I never heard of anyone getting hurt in his class. One day while working on the disk sander, I put the piece of wood on the wrong side of the machine. The wood flew across the room. I immediately turned the machine off without getting hurt.

Pop married a sighted woman. She must have liked movies. Pop would say that blind people shouId get into movies for nothing because movies are mostly visual. He was also a piano tuner. He tuned our piano. Having a blind teacher in such a dangerous subject was a wonderful experience for me. He proved without a doubt that blind people can teach. I had his class for several years.

During sixth grade, we took typing for the first time. Typing seemed useless to me. My friends and relatives were in Connecticut. There would be no reason for me to write to anyone.

Sometimes we'd have to write a letter to someone during the class period. My mind would always go blank. I always turned in an empty page. My imagination just wouldn't come up with anything for me to say. After a while, typing was fun for me.

In the spring of 1960, we had the annual typing contest. This contest was for sixth to twelfth graders. The teacher said that the sixth grade could compete just for the experience. A sixth grader had never won the contest. The prize for winning the contest was a typewriter. It lasted two days. The first day we wrote down what the teacher dictated. The first day went well. I made no mistakes. After the first-day kids were talking about how many mistakes, they made. Nobody mentioned making no mistakes. The second day, we had to read from a book and type what we read. Once again, I made