Readers Who Write

If you are a senior citizen as I am, you have lived through a lifetime of change.

Some of it has been revolutionary (the recent explosion of interest and application of artificial intelligence comes to mind). But some of it has been much more subtle with fewer apparent dire consequences. I would like to draw your attention to one of these subtle ones.

Recently, I was sitting around a table with a bunch of college students, and we were playing a game that required us to read what the person next to us had written. When my written message came around to one of the students at the table, I suddenly realized that he could not read cursive handwriting and admitted as much. This has now happened more than once with students who are currently enrolled in college.

This experience brought me up short. I was shocked and dismayed. Yikes!

We are talking about Junior not being able to read the letter from Grandma. I realized I had just recently included a note in the birthday card to my 11-year-old niece — written in cursive. She probably couldn’t read it.

I confess that this discovery has put me into a funk.

As I consider this new piece of information about young people, I tell myself I should not be surprised. After all, the lives of young people today are consumed — controlled by — screens that feature print, not cursive. There are few occasions when a young person even needs to pick up a writing implement. A signature? It is seldom more than a squiggle followed by a straight line — made with one’s finger!

And if I sit back and take a longer, historical view, I have to conclude that this inability among college students to read cursive may be merely a moment in a long line of similar experiences as the world moves on. After all, there was reportedly an often-expressed fear among the ancients that once their long epic poems were written down, humans would experience an erosion of their capacity to memorize.

And certainly the printing press put an end to books lovingly and beautifully written by hand with the result that it often takes a degree in paleography to be able to read a medieval manuscript.

So OK, I get it. It’s our contemporary world, and there is no turning back. And what right have I to complain? Look around my home office today, and you will find a computer, two tablets, and a smart phone. When I retired, I promised myself I would never again carry a calendar nor a smart phone on my person. The calendar remains always in my home office. But the smart phone? I never leave home without it!

Alas, Sister Mary of the Cross? I love the cursive you taught me oh so many years ago. People compliment me on it, and I treasure it. But I am sorry to tell you, it is a dying art.

So you say you want to write?

Go for it.

Send us 500 or so words of scintillating copy. Make it funny. Make it poignant. Make it count. Make it any way you want.

Just don’t cuss. Don’t be boring. And have a point.

If we like it, we’ll run it.

Email submissions to community@rv-times.com. Put “Readers Who Write” in the subject line, and tell us the city where you live.