Cursive? What is that?

 I woke up this morning remembering the first grade at Nickerson Elementary School.  It was a big two story red brick building just one block down from where Main Street ended.  Why is it that 72 years later I can still remember the buildings in Nickerson, Kansas, but I can not remember what I needed from the grocery store? I think there were 3 or 4 sandstone steps that led up to the double doors that opened into the first floor.  The first floor held the first 4 grades as well as the kitchen where Mrs. Ritchie cooked the meat and potatoes that was the staple noon meal for the kids who could afford to pay for meals.  The little Bartholomew kids carried a sack lunch which was eaten at the other end of the long lunch table.  It was sort of like the lunch counters at Woolsworth where the "blacks" were not allowed to set at all back in the days of segregation.  Kind of funny how some things in life never really leave our psyche.  But I digress.

I was 5 years old when I walked into the hallowed halls of learning.  The first thing I learned was that my coat went on a hook on the wall and not just any hook.  We were assigned a hook in alphabetical order according to our last name.  Which brought us to our first lesson we would learn....the alphabet!  Across the front of the class room was a giant blackboard.  Above the blackboard was mounted the alphabet.  Directly below each letter was a picture that we should associate with that letter.  A a Apple apple.  Bb Boy boy.  Cc Cat cat.  You get the drift.

I can remember how my little mind hungered to learn all the letters.  All 26 of them.  At 5 years of age I somehow knew that if I could learn those letters and if I could learn to count, that the world would be my oyster!  It is funny how the young mind can grasp a concept when it wants to.  Learning was the most important thing I had to do at that age and I was going to do it right!  The fact that about as soon as I mastered those block letters, I would advance to second grade and on to third where the little block letters would fade into "cursive".  The letters I had worked so hard to learn were no longer in use and now I must learn "cursive."

Learning cursive also entailed practicing making loops and swirls until they were all even and my skill at printing now became "penmanship."  I was a natural!  Cursive was much faster than printing.  It looked better.  My mind was now free and unencumbered by the restraints of printing.  I loved to write and to me the greatest gift in the world was a blank tablet and a pencil.  I was enthralled and the love of writing never left me.  For many years it was buried under the guise of motherhood and the need to work to survive.  (Love of alcohol also interfered in that time period.)  But time marches on.

Penmanship became a thing of the past at some point.  I am not sure when that happened, but I was having coffee with my Republican friend in Kansas when he told me he would like me to come to Topeka and write thank you notes for him because I had beautiful handwriting!  While I was flattered at the compliment, I was stunned to learn that schools were no longer teaching "cursive".  I actually thought he was bullshitting me, but he wasn't.  

Since I was am longer in the loop of school age children I do not know what the status of cursive vs printing is.  Maybe someone out there can tell me.  We are in the day of computers and text messages and I think the only pen and paper stuff is the grocery list I make occasionally.  I have, however, become adept at asking the question, "Can you read cursive?" when asked for my address.  Usually I am met with a blank stare.  How sad is that!

I guess I will go google it!  I have a box of stuff from my mother in the closet.  Uncle Ray and mother corresponded regularly and it was always in cursive.  It is sad to think that I should actually throw that stuff on a fire, because no one will be able to read it.  

Bret just came up and I asked him if he can read cursive.  His answer was " I can, but it is confusing."  During our brief discourse  he made this statement:  "It is sad that cursive has been lost, because with the loss of cursive goes the loss of a language.  The Declaration of Independence and all the old documents are written in cursive, so they can not be read in the original form."  

So let me drink a cup of kindness now to the little red brick school house that no longer exists and to the teachers that taught me how to write my name and put my thoughts on paper.  They have faded into posterity, but never from my mind.

Mrs. Breece, Mrs. Wate, Miss Holmes, Mrs. Howe, Miss Swenson, Miss Lauver, Mr. Schrieber, and Mr. Bolinger.  You will live forever in the hallowed halls of my mind.