Marshall Woman-Sex Scandal (W/Typing on the side): This Date in History
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donbosco
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Boll Weevil's existed as a label as far back as the Eisenhower days though you are right I suspect in that Thurmond may not have been specifically included...Without looking too hard, the earliest reference to the term that I can find in Newspapers.com is 1906, then again in 1934, and again in 1957 after which the term seems to have had some traction during the Eisenhower Administration. Gramm was definitely the guy whose actions resurrected the term in conjunction with Reaganomics.
Here's a source that refers to the 1950s Boll Weevil Democrats: Safire's Political Dictionary
All of that said, it looks like 99% of political historians and followers only associate the term with Gramm's group in the 1980s.
donbosco
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#OTD (9/1) in 1976 Ohio Representative Wayne Hays (D) resigned from office after well-founded allegations surfaced that he had employed on his administrative payroll as a secretary Elizabeth Ray, whose actual job was serving as his mistress. Ray told all to the Washington Post in May of 1976. Her famous quote, "I can't type, I can't file, I can't even answer the phone…” said it all.
Hays, a 14 term congressman headed the committee that controlled facilities in Congress and used that position to seek power. He was known as the “meanest man in the House.” Cross him and the air conditioning might be shut off in your Capitol Hill office.
In the aftermath of the news Ray published a tell-all book, The Washington Fringe Benefit, that exposed the sex for hire side of Washington. She posed for Playboy soon afterward but in a short time her fame receded. Elizabeth Ray was born Betty Lou Ray in 1943 in Marshall, NC. There are unconfirmed reports that she recently passed away at the age of 82.
Hays divorced his first wife of many years and married the longtime secretary in his Ohio congressional office.
This pissed off Elizabeth Ray; but, not in the way you might think.
“I was good enough to be his mistress for two years; but, not good enough to be invited to his wedding.”
This pissed off Elizabeth Ray; but, not in the way you might think.
“I was good enough to be his mistress for two years; but, not good enough to be invited to his wedding.”
donbosco
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Not really related, but I took a year long typing class as a sophmore in high school. I've not made many good decisions in my life, but that was definitely one of them. Before personal computers were a thing, knowing how to touch type, i.e., type without looking at the keyboard was nice, but after PC's came out, knowing how to touch type has been great. And I say this while typing on a mobile phone only using my two thumbs. Knowing where the keys are on QUERTY key board has been great thing for me. But the reason my posts have so many typos is because I touch type on such a small keyboard and my thumbs are too big.
donbosco
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Now look what you did 05...
I well remember my high school typing class - luckily I took that half-year offering with most of the rest of my high school basketball team. That meant that it turned into a competition - and not just speed but one that gave equal weight to accuracy. This all took place in the classroom space dominated by Mrs. Dark. Because basketball was our life and North Carolina in our blood the fact that Mrs. Dark was a staunch Wake Forest fan while my buddies and I were all Carolina or State with Melvin Womble, a renegade Maryland fan thrown in for good measure, was significant and flavored the banter during our sessions. There were no dook fans to be seen as in those days only dyed-in-the-wool and sprinkled Methodists pulled for dook. I only knew one of those in high school.
For 1975-76, the Year of Typing - Carolina, State, and Wake were ranked squads with UNC finishing 25-4 #8, and NCSU 21-9 (as high as #8 but a late-season skid left them out of the top 20 at the end). WFU went 17-10 and rose to #18 only, like State, to falter in January. Wiley ole foot stomper Lefty Driesell’s ‘UCLA of the East’ team pulled a 22-6 record and a final ranking of #11. Dook was a sub .500 13-14 and never threatened. Virginia was on the rise.
My senior year - the Year of Typing - the Chatham Central Bears boys basketball team went 17-5, losing all five of those games to but two teams - the West Montgomery Warriors and, infuriatingly...our down-the-road rival, the Jordan Matthews Jets. In those contests we came up short by a grand a total of 8 points spread across those five losses. It was great to win so many games but overall one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. We were tall and fast and tended to play well together but at key junctures the wheels had fallen off the bus. (Someday I’ll write that story)
Mrs. Dark showed a lot of moxy in getting that rowdy bunch to behave. She would have probably been a good coach - certainly better than the one we had. To this day I’m a fast typer though my precision may have faltered a bit.
Typing was one of the two most important classes that I took in high school - the other was music. My music teacher, Polly Yow, was a toweringly positive figure my high school days. She was the absolute best. And yes, English and History provided some opportunities - in the former I did read excerpts from a few classics and a rebellious student teacher from Chapel Hill slipped me copies of ‘A Catcher in The Rye,’ and ‘Down All The Days,’ - both mind blowing to my sensibilities way back in the early 1970s - without that introductory material my first days in Chapel Hill the following August would have perhaps been too, too much for me to handle.
Nevertheless, it was the typing that proved most productive in Chapel Hill and since. I am a good speller thanks to my Aunt Burdine and my grammar, while at times quirky, is sound. In my freshman year in Everett Dorm, once the Home of the ROGAH, I set up my typing shop. Among my peers there were a lot of 5-6 page papers assigned and I could punch out one of those in a half hour. I did that for .50 cents a page. For $1.00 a page I would correct spelling and grammar. That was beer money since a can of Schlitz down at Kirkpatrick’s went for .55 cents in those days. A pretty long-play (because we all became adept) pinball game went for .25 and a Greek Grill Cheese and fries at Hector’s on the way home from the bars at 1 am went for $1.44 if you drank water from the sink. Of course with the advent of computers the skill Mrs. Dark taught me became even more important and essential. I typed all my own papers in graduate school and every manuscript in the days since.
Thanks Mrs. Dark. You did more to get me through school than almost anybody else.
*Any typos and errors in this essay are all my responsibility. (Except for the one in the title of the linked article!)
Does Anyone Else Remember Taking Typing Class on Real Typewritters?
There's no question that our educational system has made dramatic changes over the last 25 years. Thanks to technology, kids are learning in ways we could have never imagined growing up, and the tools used to teach children have changed. One tool that many kids today wouldn't have any idea how to us
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