As a child attending school (in Oklahoma) we were taught to write on the famous Big Chief tablets, the Indian Chief with feathered headdress prominent on its red cover. The blank pages had lines to aid our beginning writing with our wooden No. 2 pencils. There was a dotted line to indicate the desired height of the lower case letters. (I didn’t know they were called lower case at the time, I just called them small) There were similar lines for the uppercase letters. We wrote on our tablets daily, working toward legible cursive handwriting. It must have worked as I passed out of those lower grades.
But now, I can hardly read my own handwriting.
I look for two things, not necessarily in this order: 1. Someone or something to blame for my poor penmanship, and 2. Ways to improve my handwriting. I want my handwriting to look like the person who filled in our Scottish marriage certificate!
Concerning No 1, I now think some blame can be laid on the fact that in our small business I had to write out invoices, on a carbonless form that was in triplicate. It required writing very firmly with my ballpoint to make an impression on all three copies.
I’ve always thought some blame could also be attributed to the paper on which I write. Surely if I had better paper, my handwriting would improve. I continue to search for that paper.
Some blame was saved for the instrument, the pen, or the pencil with which I wrote. Surely if I had a better pen my handwriting would improve.
So I started collecting pens, both new and old, in search of better handwriting. Much to my dismay, I discovered my handwriting was really not much different when using my Conway Stewart Commemorative Churchill (of whom I am a huge fan) fountain pen or the ballpoint I picked up for free at the local grocery store. What to do?
When my wife came home from being with her family in Scotland at the passing of her father, she brought her dad’s old Schaeffer fountain pen. I inked it up and, to my eye at least, my penmanship improved, confirming my suspicions that my poor handwriting had to do with the instrument.
Just some months ago I found my old US Navy pea coat. In one of the pockets was a small devotional booklet and a short note to myself. The note was readable! I’m not sure of the date, but I was discharged from the Navy in December of 1974. So, at least at some time in the past, I had legible if not perfect handwriting. Certain proof also that my handwriting has degraded over the years.
Somewhere in my search, I came across the WES. Surely I thought, with the information provided in these quality journals I would be able to improve my handwriting.
Somewhere I read that John Steinbeck had written with a Blackwing pencil as had several other prominent authors and composers. And Blackwing pencils, the article stated, were once again available. I ordered some and actually found my penmanship improved. I believe it’s because I write with much less pressure, a lighter hand if you will, and my writing is improved. So maybe it is me after all, and not the paper, the pen, or the ink which I have forgotten to blame.
Through the Journal of The WES, I was able to get in some writing practice. A gentleman in Orleans, Massachusetts read a letter I had written to the editor some years ago and we started a correspondence, always with pen and ink.
With a daughter and five of our grandchildren living in Scotland, we usually visited twice a year. It was a goal at some point for our travels to coincide with an event of the WES and I could meet some of you in person. But with age and pandemic restrictions, travel is less and less convenient and that possibility is fading
When in Scotland I always go to car boot sales, antique and charity shops still searching for the old pen that will give me the handwriting style of that British civil servant who filled in our marriage certificate.
In my heart I know it’s really me, but the search continues.
(Published in the Bumper Christmas Edition of The Journal of The Writing Equipment Society. www.wesonline.org.uk)