CUSSED CURSIVE, Or. "WHO WRITES LIKE THAT ?"

 

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Over the blackboard in 3d grade classroom

"I can't read your handwriting.  What does that say?"

How many times I have heard that and wanted to say something like "that was  scribbled by my brother, the doctor" But that   would be unfair.  Pensmanship (as it was once   called) has never been my talent.  As part of my 'save that' penchant

I have all my public school report cards, beginning with the first one of 1944-45 school year.   In the second grade, I earned a year-end grade of C+ for my writing skills. Only occasionally thereafter did  that improve. (That was better than the X mark my 7th grade teacher gave for "laughs and talks quietly" !  Looking back, what makes that a social virtue ?! If you are going to laugh, why not a hearty belly-laugh ? But that for another time.)

"Cursive" . . . a dying art form, no longer taught in most public schools, meeting the fate of the slide rule. Over the blackboard in our elementary classrooms, forms like the picture above provided models for us to copy multiple times.   Take heart, You Tube offers videos on the how-to's of cursive. In addition to school teachers,there were lots of folks urging me to greater legibility. Dad had a beautiful flowing style and mom's was likewise distinctive. However, only  their youngest son's writing  has even a modicum of decipher-ability.  The middle son's profession of physician provides  him a socially acceptable justification for his 'hen scratching'.  My reasoning (some might say 'excuse') is that I spent too many years in academe, trying to take class notes while professors lectured like talking machine guns

Whatever the 'cause', when my writing becomes "cold", I often  struggle to read the script. Someone looking over my shoulder as I wrote, quipped "If you can't read it, take it to Revco (a once upon a time pharmacy) and they will fill it for you."

   With typewriters (remember those?) and now computers and word processors everywhere, my greatest challenge often is font styles changing without warning. Other art forms associated with cursive are on the brink of dinosaur-dom: the handwritten letter and for many the 

fountain pen. While I don't send many 'snail  mail' letters, I love writing with fountain pens. An undergrad professor in his thick accent instructed the class: "Ze dean has instructed that you fill out zis form withz your penten-found, er...fountain pen."

Write on !!

 Satchel