The Words We Write
Posted on January 30, 2016 by bob in OffTheBeatenPath
On a Tuscaloosa fall Saturday otherwise long-forgotten, I was at home watching the Tide play on the 
road when the sound of my front porch mailbox lid falling shut caught my attention. As a college student at the time I didn’t get much from the postal service outside of bills, class registration information and the occasional magazine, but there, sitting alone in the mailbox, was a hand-addressed envelope with my name on it.
The script was unmistakeable. The carefully crafted letters, written with slow deliberation, were, without question, my grandfather’s. I opened the envelope. It seemed everyone he’d ever met was granted a nickname or two, and one of mine was “Rooster,” sometimes “Baby Rooster” if he was in a chiding mood. It was evident at the time he penned the letter that indeed the latter was the case. “Hello, Baby Rooster,” it began.
He went on to write how much he’d enjoyed the fishing trip we’d been on together when I had last been home, but also how he’d had great difficulty deciphering my most recent written correspondence with him, to the point neither he nor my grandmother could make out the words. This was the impetus for the chiding and demotion to Baby Rooster. In his mind, while I had already completed more education than he, I had somehow never learned to write legibly.
He closed the letter with a humble request: “Please take a calligraphy class while you are at school.”
I remember laughing out loud at those words, as if such a dinosaur of a subject could be worked into a modern curriculum. Regrettably, I tossed that letter. Years went by and after his death, while cleaning out his house, a draft of that letter – written on the back of a bank statement – was found in a drawer. The handwriting, so distinctly his, resurrected a voice I knew I’d never again hear in this life. The care he’d taken in authoring what I’d considered a casual communication – working through at least one rough draft before penning the final – revealed the impetus for his request regarding my penmanship: take pride in what you do, for it may outlast you.
That was a turning point in how I viewed correspondence. There is certainly a time and place for e-mail; it’s quick, easy and well-suited for the busy lives we live. But longhand has its place as well, for memorializing in that most personal of ways the written communication between people. The spoken word is ephemeral, but the written word lives on, preserving the author’s voice long after he or she is no longer able. There is comfort in that.
Our handwriting says a great deal about us, both the manner and substance. My grandfather’s – so ornate, so painstakingly executed – used style to compensate for immigrant diction which sometimes missed the mark. On the other end of the spectrum, written communication with my paternal grandmother mirrored conversations with her over the phone – short but kind, always practical and always direct.
While I was off at school, she would periodically drop a card in the mail with a hand-written note of encouragement, always accompanied by a little gas money and the closing words “I love you, Granny.” Like the sound of her voice and the smell of her kitchen, there is something so definitively “her” that lives on in those few written words, nothing more than ink on a Hallmark card to anyone but me.
I have found good penmanship requires practice, and having a good pen with which to write makes all the difference. I abhor using public pens – largely for hygiene reasons – so several years ago began carrying my own pen. Like any quality instrument for those who know the difference, a good pen is a joy to use and invites opportunities to issue longhand script, even if just a note in the margin of a Bible or a few words to brighten the day of a family member, friend or coworker who’s hit a rough patch on life’s road. “Things will get better,” you’ll write, the words forever recorded should he or she need reassurance in the future.
So much in modern life is one-time-use, disposable. Our correspondence shouldn’t be. Shut off the computer and turn off the phone. Get some nice paper, buy a good pen, and jot down a few words of encouragement to someone special.
But, before doing so, for goodness sake, please, take a calligraphy class.
Niko Corley is a USCG-licensed charter boat captain and spends his free time on the water or in the woods. To contact him e-mail niko.corley@gmail.com.
