RE: New tool wars! WAS: Pinsky poem in the Atlantic "Jar of Pens"

[jgarison -at- ide -dot- com]

Abbess mine (long story - read the archives!)

When I was in second grade, we happened to be living in Germany. Köln in
1957 was just 12 years after the end of WWII and the place was a mess. It
was a very interesting experience to a seven year-old, though! 

We lived in a little village - Junkersdorf - and I went to the local school.
No pens, no pencils,  no paper. Instead, we all had slates. Little portable
blackboards that we wrote on using pencils that had chalk instead of
graphite. 

My mother used to swear that going to school in Germany ruined my
handwriting. She even enrolled me in the Calvert School - distance learning
1950s style - in an attempt to get my handwriting back to it's fluid grace.
It didn't work.

While my handwriting is passable, it's not the elegant hand of my parents'
generation...

Tech writing tie-in:

When I meet with SMEs or others to extract information, I often get comments
on using a fountain pen. It's a good ice breaker!


John


-----Original Message-----
From: Marguerite Krupp [mailto:mkrupp -at- cisco -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 9:26 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: New tool wars! WAS: Pinsky poem in the Atlantic "Jar of
Pens"



Funny this should come up today. And yes, there IS a tech writing tie-in -
but first, some background.

I had a dream last night involving a penwiper I had in fourth grade - suede
outside, red felt inside, cut in the shape of a bear. It was a souvenir my
great-aunts brought me from Great Barrington, Massachusetts, summer home of
editor and poet William Cullen Bryant. Back when I was in grammar school, we
were first allowed to have real ink pens and inkwells when we reached second
grade. These pens were the type that had removable points. You got a new pen
and point at the start of each school year. Before you used a new pen point,
for some reason you had to suck on it. You dipped the assembled pen into the
inkwell, but only up to the bottom of the little hole in the point.
Otherwise, you got blots - a serious error. You needed the penwiper to wipe
the ink off the pen after using it or if you got too much ink on the pen in
the first place.

We wrote in Palmer method, with a "specimen of my best handwriting" every
month. The sentence for June was always, "Roses bloom in June." It was
supposed to be the best one of the year. To this day, I cringe when I see
roses blooming in June.

The tech writing tie in (at last):
One of my presentations at the STC Conference was called, "Once upon a
time." It dealt with the way we used to do tech writing... including yellow
pads and #2 pencils. I referred to it as "returning to the days of big
computers, big hair, and short skirts." Here's the url:
http://www.stc.org/49thConf/Session_Materials/file_2a.asp?ID=22

BTW, I no longer have perfect Palmer method handwriting.

Marguerite


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