Handwriting U
Handwriting and I have always had an uneasy relationship, coexisting kind of like the human body does with a fever.
Though uncomfortable, a fever indicates that the body is working correctly, fighting off some type of infection. The increase in body temperature means that your body has ramped up its defenses against something trying to harm it.
If I pull out a pen and a notebook, that is also a reaction to something my body (actually my brain) can’t handle alone. A pen in my hand also often results in chills, cold sweat and headaches – just like a fever.
The first teacher to put a pencil in my fat little left hand knew I was in trouble. My handwriting was garbage from the womb and nothing worked to fix it.
I had extra workbooks to practice in at home, experimented with alternative grips and even had those stupid squishy triangles affixed to all my writing instruments. All of this was in an effort to allow people to understand the beautiful ideas in my brain without having to decipher the smudged collection of graphite squiggles on my homework papers.
When I dipped my toe in the arena of cursive writing, I’m pretty sure my teachers created a spike in sedatives sales at Revco.
I’m fairly ambidexterous, and in truth naturally do more things with my my right hand, so a decent argument could be made that I learned to write with my non-dominant hand. Doesn’t matter now, because I’m not going back and relearning.
My letters never look the same twice. They are sometimes large, other times small, often crammed together so that the loops on the letters L, B and F combine into one mass of swirls that look like the early rendering of a damn fine roller coaster.
Two events allowed me to overcome my digital dilemma – taking a typing class in high school and the drop in price of home computers. In college, essay tests were still a problem, but at least 20-page papers were easier to pull together. Actually, a 20-page paper in my handwriting is probably only about 1,000 words, so I probably created some extra work for myself by typing them.
So as anyone with terrible, sloppy handwriting should do, I moved into a job that requires you to take tons of handwritten notes. Not only do I have to write down information rapidly and accurately, but I also have to do so in the second-smallest notebooks used in any profession. The fine men and women that comprise the nation’s wait-staffs might use tinier notepads, but at least they have menus to use as cheat sheets.
Over the years I developed my own hacked up kind of short hand that saves me a little time in writing. It also helps instantly deter anyone trying to read my notes over my shoulder at a public meeting.
One thing I have learned lately, however, is that my writing can get worse – because it is. As managing editor, I find myself in fewer situations to take notes than a regular reporter who churns out stories.
I still cover football games and meetings and perform interviews, so I still have a need to take quick, detailed notes, but it’s getting hard. I don’t know whether the lack of training is affecting my hand or my brain, but the messages going between those two aren’t working well anymore.
I came back from my first high school football game of the 2017 season with some quotes I couldn’t use. This wasn’t because the coaches were cursing, but rather because I couldn’t be certain of exactly what I had written down.
Between lack of practice, the furious pace of post-game interviews and perhaps deteriorating motor skills, I had some outright gibberish to decipher when I got back to the office.
I have seen some lovely handwritten letters from older people, so I believe that handwriting doesn’t deteriorate over time. My problem is, that I am starting with a skill set that earned a familiar “U” for unsatisfactory on my elementary school report cards.
If my writing gets much worse over time, my signature may not accepted to cash my social security checks.
-Chad Williamson is the managing editor at Journal-Tribune.