 Artwork ©Alice Whitney 2019 We heard an interesting piece on the CBC the other day about the increasing rarity of cursive writing. There is an exhibit at the New Brunswick Museum running through the first of May 0f 2019 asking whether writing is still relevant to you? Please enjoy this column that was originally published in the Kings County Record on March 8th of 2005.
I had occasion, the other day, to take up a writing implement which does not plug into the electrical service, and an innocent bystander, observing the whole operation said, “How can you write like that?” Of course, I knew right away that the questioner was right-handed. And of course, I as a lefty, also realized that I had unconsciously gone back to holding the paper the way I had been taught in grade school. In our day, the approved method of making marks on the page was something called “Palmer penmanship.” I don’t know who Mr. Palmer was, but as far as I was concerned, he certainly had it in for kids. I have a little book on Slant Gothic (1918) that brings it all back. Consider the first page: “What is to be desired is quality not quantity… Do not leave a single poor letter on your Exercise sheet if you can improve it in any way. Therefore, make each letter so lightly that it can be erased with two or three strokes of an eraser.”  Artwork © Alice Whitney 2019 This column – originally published in the Kings County Record on February 23rd, 1999 – seems appropriate given the long, cold, wet winter that we have been experiencing. As always, please enjoy!
The upheavals in the postal system that had people practically in tears in Sussex a while back have not yet penetrated to these distant outposts of civilization. But we are already seeing signs and portents, and must assume that what the prophets of the Old Testament were fond of calling "the Last Days" are soon to appear over the horizon. We have had our emergency services numbers for quite a while now and are pleased to think that, if need be, the emergency services can find us. In fact, they have already found us. One of NB Tel's service men had come out here to explore an odd glitch in the line and the next thing either of us knew, first one, then two, police cars steamed up the driveway and wanted to know why we had called 911. It was gratifying to know that the response was so prompt, only neither the telephone repairman nor I had felt the need of reinforcements at that particular moment. And when I called 911 back as requested, it turned out that our street number on record with 911 was different from the street number we had been given as our very own, and no-one else's. That raised the question as to how the two police cars had found us so quickly, but it didn’t seem that just then was a good time to explore the matter. |
