The Lesson

      More Letters From Paradise

            The Lesson

An old man was seated on a park bench reading his tablet."Mister would you help me?" The voice came from a small girl standing next to him. "What can I do for you?" he said. "Help me to learn to write in cursive." she replied. "What is your name?" he asked. "Emily." "How old are you?" "Nine, going on ten."

Why do you want to learn to write cursive?"  "It's so beautiful" "I look at the cursive writing by Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock, and they just seem to flow."
"Why does everyone print today?" "What happened?"

 The old man tried to explain." I think it all began with the invention of the printing press and moveable type."" It would have been difficult to print a newspaper or a tablet today in cursive."
"Oh but cursive didn't disappear." " It was used for a long time." " It was taught in schools."" Above the chalk boards the letters of the alphabet were shown, and how to form each letter, both large letters and small ones."

"People would send each other letters written in cursive."" There were even postcards written on one side and sent people." "That wasn't very private was it?" "No, but these were just friendly letters."" People would send cards from places were they were, while on vacation."

"What then happened to curves?" she asked "Computers,the internet, and all the rest." the old man sighed.

"I still want to learn how to write in cursive" Emily said stubbornly." "Will you teach me?" "Why me?" "Because you are old and know so much."

"Well, I'm no expert, but I will show you how to write one word in cursive.""We will write Thomas Jefferson"s last name."

"What would you like to pretend to be,flying a plane or ice skating?" "I think I would like to be flying a plane." "So we are going to pretend that you are a flying a plane."

"First you should draw three horizontal line on your tablet,one above the other, with an even space between, like a fence with three wires." "Let me see what you have."She shows him her tablet.
 
"Now let's go flying and write Jefferson in cursive." "We begin on the middle line an take off up into the air, and make a wide loop to the left and then fly back down and pass over the middle line and fly on down and make a narrow loud and fly up again to the center line where you started." "Let's see how far you have flown. "That's pretty good."

"Now we have to connect the letter "J" to the next one, and all you do is to fly a small loop to the right and return to the center line." "Then you have to fly two tall narrow loops close together." "That looks real fine." "Next you fly another small loop and we come to the letter "r," which you fly up and stop and fly level to the right, and back down again." The next letter looks like a partridge or a robin pushing its chest cut." " Fly up, push your chest out, and come back down"This is the letter"s." "Now comes a really fun letter, fly a complete loop." "We now hook it to the last letter." "Fly straight up and then make a small arc to the right, and fly straight back down." "That is all there is to it." You have just written "Jefferson." in cursive. congratulations!"

"You should go to the internet and find more about cursive and how to form all the letters. And after much practice you will be able to write smoothly in cursive. " "Then something magical  will happen!"" You will have developed your own particular style of writing." "It belongs to you alone, and    nobody else." "Some people write small, some write very large." "Some writing slants to the right, and others to the left." "My grandpa Joe always wrote in green ink,"I always thought that was something special, everyone else always wrote in either blue or black ink."

"Thank you for the lesson." Emily said. "Will you be here tomorrow?" "I hope so," he replied.

         End

        Aloha
        Grant