August 31, 2015
Handwriting Isn't What it Used to Be

The other day I decided to set pen to paper and write my collegiate son a note.  Recalling how exciting it was to receive anything but a credit card application or sales flier in the mailbox when one is firs away from home, I figured it might be a nice gesture.

Then I remembered a sad fact that halted me like an empty inkwell:  my kids cannot decipher my handwriting.  Never could and never will.

I don't know why this is so but it just is.  There are times when even I can't read what I've scribbled on the page. Perhaps it is the fact that in the third grade my teacher, Miss Strom, once gave ma an "unsatisfactory" grade in handwriting.  That was a devastating moment for me and how I recovered I am not quite certain.  I will say that is the one and only "U" I have ever received on a report card. 

Back then, my mom used to tell of the school days when the "Palmer Method of Handwriting" was taught to school kids.  Being the visual, artistic person that I am, I think I would have taken to that method rather readily. Handwriting exercises were performed daily in an effort to promote the precise, rightly-tilted letters and nicely formed characters.  Mom told us that those exercises consisted of drawing connected circles across one's tablet.  (She does admit that she wasn't always the best at those and used to go back and fill in some of her o's along the way).  

At any rate, the Palmer method of penmanship produced some pretty perfected handwriting in its day. One could even boast that it did so in an artistic fashion,

When we were students in elementary school the classrooms were lined with cards depicting the proper formation of cursive letters, and great care was taken to mimic the lovely script.  By the third grade, cursive writing was required of us with little exception to that rule.  

Yet a few years later, many students developed their own style of handwriting.  There were those whose defiance of the curriculum, leaned their letters far to the left.  Some wrote in a straight up style, forgoing the gentle, rightward lean.  And then there was me.

I think I tried just about every style there was yet I just didn't seem to be able to develop my own unique style.  I guess that "unsatisfactory" grade could have had something to do with my handwriting self esteem. But I actually blame it on heredity.  My dad's handwriting could send a chill to you if you had to actually understand what he had written.  My mom admits to breaking out in a cold sweat whenever she was given the task of transcribing anything that dad had written.

As a reporter, poor hand writing can be a challenge, a stumbling block so to speak.  It's one thing to  have the ability to scribble quickly a few words heard.  but it's completely another to understand what  you've written.  These days I can blame the injury to my right hand as a factor in my shoddy handwriting.  Try as I may it seems I am unable to avoid the curse of the "sloppy cursive writer", so I guess I had better stick to printing, or better yet typing my letter to my son these days.  

But I may just pen a special letter to Dad and see if he can translate what I've written. I'll bet he will have no trouble whatsoever.