Cursive, Foiled Again!

   Back toward the end of summer, I found myself writing a couple of short little notes in birthday cards for a couple of my stepsons, Keenan and Callum.

If you've never seen it, this is what it looks like!

   I have been writing salutations in birthday cards, letters to people, notes to friends and family, exams, prose, poetry, and daily recording for over half a century now. When I have done this, I have a used a form of cursive writing that was very legible, neat and pleasing to the eye. In fact, I have received high praise from anyone who has had the pleasure of viewing it. 

   So it took me greatly by surprise, then, when I realized that neither of these two young men were actually able to decipher the messages I'd written in their birthday cards. They are both extremely intelligent lads but I might just as well have been writing in Sanskrit, for all they knew.
    Cursive writing is fading away as a viable means of communication. In this day of texting, e-mails and instant messaging, the need to actually hand write a note is almost non-existent. It also seems as though the handwriting you do run into is becoming more and more illegible all the time.
   I learned to write cursive in public school and I remember spending whole periods where we'd study the alphabet on display above the blackboard and attempt to copy it to a t--and a and b and so on--until our versions were almost identical to the ones we were trying to emulate.
   I've always had the ability to closely copy whatever was placed on paper in front of me and this was a skill which greatly came in handy when it came to cursive writing. I never was flowery and never really embellished my penmanship--I copied what I saw and it has held me in good stead ever since.
    These days, it also seems to be getting tougher to read other people's cursive writing and the younger the person is, the more difficult it seems. Written communication has almost become a printing/cursive hybrid anymore. We occasionally have staff meetings at my place of employment and someone needs to take the minutes. These are always handwritten and it's kind of funny looking around the table trying to find someone whose handwriting will be legible enough to transcribe later on!
   Not only do I do cursive wonderfully but I took four years of Latin in high school. Yes, I am a dinosaur. Not only can I write something you can't read I can tell you the ancient origin of it you won't care about!
   There could (will) be a day when we will need to pass around handwritten notes, because that will be the only option for communication. The ones of us who can still write cursive will be there, writing implements in hand, ready to rule the world.
   So, birthday number three rolled around, Quin's, and when the time came to inscribe something on his card, I had sadly learned my lesson---I printed.