Two Thumbs And A Send Button

Joe, the official brother-in-law of TigerBlog, is an information sciences professor.

He told TB an interesting story about a time he was talking about how in the Soviet Union, typewriters had to be registered and getting typewriter ribbons was nearly impossible. He said this prompted a very interesting, very serious question, from one of the students in the lecture hall.

"What," asked the student with the raised hand, "is a typewriter ribbon."

This led to a quick search of typewriter ribbons, which led to a YouTube video of millennials as they were handed an old manual typewriter and a piece of paper and had to try to figure out what do to make it work.

TigerBlog learned to type on a manual typewriter. When he went to college, he was the only one on his floor freshman year who had an electric typewriter. That's how old he is.

The millennials in the video couldn't figure out how to load the paper, or how to return the page from the right to the left. The bell that singled you were getting close to the margin scared a few of them.

When the video was over, Joe said, one of the students commented that "wow, back then you really had to think about what you wanted to say before you wrote it."

That could be among the wiser things that TB has ever heard.

The point was that making corrections on a typewriter was difficult. TB was lucky, because his electric typewriter came with built-in correct tape. No messing around with white out for him.

Since correcting typos (or simply changing your mind after you'd written something) was really difficult, you had to be sure about what path you were going down before you started to hit the keys. And then you had to be careful.

Hey, in that last paragraph alone, TB made three typos that he had to hit the "delete" key for to correct. Imagine if he had to go back and grab the correct tape or the white out every time he made one? He'd never get done.

The last paragraph featured only one typo to correct. This one is up to three. There. Three.

Now he's not even thinking about what he's writing, only about how many times he has to go back and hit "delete." This was a four-delete paragraph. Make it seven. He had three in that one sentence alone.

The global point about thinking about what you say before you write it is somewhat obvious in the modern context. It's easy to hit "send" before something is completely thought out.

Think of how much trouble people have gotten into because of that little issue. As TB says to Princeton's athletes, when he first started, to get yourself into trouble for something you said, you needed to first say something dumb and then you had to say it to someone who would then reproduce it in another medium. Now all you need is a phone, two thumbs and the "send button."

Of course, Princeton is fortunate to have the kinds of athletes it does, and so the good that comes of hitting "send" outweighs the bad by a factor of thousands.

Yesterday was one of the best days for Princeton and social media. It was Mothers' Day, and there were dozens of posts of Princeton's current players and alums and their mothers.

Here are a few of the really good ones:

The one on the bottom is Princeton men's lacrosse player Jacob Stoebner.

Those are great. There were so many others that were tremendous as well.

As someone who has spent a great deal of time in his life immersed in youth and club sports, TB can tell you first hand what sacrifices mothers make for their kids to get them to be able to compete at a level like Princeton. It's a sacrifice of love of course, and the memories that were created during those years will last forever.

They were times of a lot of joy, and it wasn't just because of the success or failure of a game or a tournament. They were major bonding experiences for families. For everything bad you've ever heard about youth sports and club sports - and there are many bad parts - there is no mistaking what they do for the people involved in them.

And so it's great to see Princeton's athletes thanking their moms yesterday.

They certainly deserved the shout out.

And to those who lost their moms? TB can relate, and no Mothers' Day since his own left him 26 years ago has been unemotional.

Gone, but the memories are still there. And they will never go away.