When I was very young, my mother took a job as a school bus driver so that she could buy two things:  a Royal typewriter and a Singer sewing machine.  Not long after she bought the typewriter, she enrolled in, and later completed, the typing and shorthand classes being offered by one of the local high school’s adult education programs.  Although I am sure she did exemplary work in those classes (my mother always brought home “A’s”), I don’t think she ever got to use her newly acquired skills in any vocational way.  That’s because my mother’s real gifts were in cooking and managing, and it was the combination…