One Space. Period. One Space.

It really doesn’t seem so long ago that I was one of the youngest people in the office, and if not the whole office, at least on my team. I remember when I arrived in Saskatoon as the assistant branch manager, I was the youngest person in the branch. When I added Regina to my empire, there might have been one person there who was younger than me. Now, sadly, I’m always one of the oldest. While I think that things definitely change, almost immediately as you step over that chronological milestone called 40, I haven’t spent a lot of time lamenting the fact that I’m aging.

A lot can happen once you pass this magical mile marker

However, now at least weekly, if not even daily, I encounter things that make me feel old. I was at a conference the other day and the speaker was talking about the Energizer Bunny. Just as he began to say that the Energizer Bunny is a pop culture reference that our younger colleagues have never heard of, it hit me that there are a bunch of things that make me feel old. Like that freakin’ pink bunny.

He kept going and going...Now, apparently he's gone.

I made a reference to Issac the bartender on Love Boat the other day. Not only did my audience not know who Issac was, they didn’t even know what Love Boat was. Really?  Am I that old?  When I facilitate a meeting, I like flipcharts and markers. I had no idea that flip-charting was old school, but when my kids saw my marker collection a couple of months ago, they really couldn’t conceive of anybody writing on a flip chart. Dad, what’s a flip chart?

How could a whole generation not know about the Love Boat.  I had such a crush on Julie McCoy.

I work with a guy, a communications specialist. He’s a great writer, and like all great writers, he’s very ‘particular’ about things like punctuation and spelling and all that. Every time I write something he edits the hell out of it, and it’s usually better as a result. We have this ongoing argument about the period, and how many spaces follow it when you’re typing. I say two spaces, and he says one. "Two spaces," he says, "...is old fashioned."  I’m resolute when it comes to my two spaces.  And he's fanatical when it comes to getting things right.  That's what makes him such a good writer and editor.

I said ONE SPACE!!!!

To put this into context, I took a typing class in grade nine. My dad couldn’t understand why typing would ever be important. I didn’t really know either, but there were lots of girls in the class, and as a gawky, chubby grade niner, it couldn't hurt to have the odds tipped a little in my favour. My teacher, Mrs. Clendenning, roamed the class with a manual typewriter on a wheeled cart, yelling out, “F, Space, F, Space, Semi, Space…” and so on. We typed as she yelled. There were always two spaces after a period and if there weren’t, you failed. Then, when I got to journalism school, one space after a period also earned you a failing grade.

Turns out that even the improved odds of being the only guy in typing class didn't help.

The communications specialist is practically always right when it comes to grammar and punctuation, and I know he enjoys demonstrating his rightness. Just a wee little bit. He searched it up on the google, because God knows everything on the google is right, and as it turns out, computers have made putting two spaces after a period obsolete. There is apparently no reason to do it anymore. The brain inside the computer understands and spaces appropriately. Hmmph. I still put two spaces, first, because I just can’t stop, and second, perhaps, just to keep him on his toes. If I keep doing it, he's gonna hurt me.

"Really, Sean, do you need some electric shock therapy to get this one space thing right?"

I learned that this spacing issue annoys other people too…After I posted my blog last week, I got a call from my friend Vera who runs a magazine. She had read my post and called to offer her feedback. “Seannie…,” she said, “…what’s the deal with the two spaces after the period?  It just makes you look old.” Bloody hell.

If Andy Rooney would have had a blog, he would have written it on a typewriter. And there would have been 2 spaces.