Cursive Writing

In third grade I learned cursive
And I loved the way it looked
While others clung to printing
I admit that I was hooked
On the swirls, and curls, and flowiness
Of the letters on each line
And I practiced each with diligence
And attempted to refine
The subtle, forward slant of it
The loops and ending strokes
My teacher said I had a flair
Unlike some bumbling blokes
Who never seemed to understand
Just how to make a z
And never mastered bridging
From a w to an e
It seems that cursive’s heyday
May reside now in the past
But I’m convinced if John Hancock knew
He’d certainly be aghast.

Twists and Turns

Driving to school this morning, I was listening to my favorite radio station.  Jerry House was already mid-topic when I tuned in at 6:40.  As usual, he was discussing a recent statement he had read in the newspaper or heard on the news.  This one caught my ear and a piece of my heart as well.  It seemed Jerry had heard that schools would no longer be teaching cursive handwriting.  Not a huge shock to me.  I don't think we've really been teaching it for many years now.  Oh, it gets introduced in third grade, probably by a teacher young enough to have barely learned it herself, but it doesn't get practiced.  And it isn't revered.  At least not by most.  And I'm pretty sure I know why.  It's the obsolescence of the cartridge pen.

Back in the day, learning cursive was a rite of passage that carried with it the use of . . . the cartridge pen.  Oh, you didn't receive the privelege right away.  One had to practice the strokes diligently.  And a student was not left to their own devices.  Every stroke was announced and modeled.  Using one's finger as an imaginary pencil and holding one's hand high into the air, eight and nine year olds would write in the sky.  "Swing up, slant down, loop back, push up and around, and swing.  Again . . ."  Groups of 6 or 8 would go to the chalkboard (yes, the chalkboard) and practice there while the rest of the class practiced on their specially lined writing paper at their seats.  Each letter was practiced individually and then in tandem with a variety of other letters.  By the end of third grade, one would have mastered cursive.  And then you were ready for fourth grade.

Fourth grade was the year of the cartridge pen and Washable Blue ink.  (Oh, how I wanted Peacock Blue, but that apparently was being saved for junior high.)  Practicing cursive now included holding the pen correctly and applying just the right amount of pressure to allow the nib to glide smoothly over one's paper. 
How I envied those whose names began with the "beautiful letters."  A properly made capital F was regal.  An S or an E held such possibilities if curled just so.  My sister, Sue Ellen, had them both and I'm not sure she appreciated the gift.  I on the other hand had the dreaded J.  It hung down below the baseline and ruined the symmetry of my initials.  My friend Janice and I attempted all known nuances to elevate the beauty of that letter, but eventually had to accept it for what it was.

As you can tell, cursive was more than just a skill to me.  It enhanced every assignment I was given.  Even if the language sentences assigned for homework were dull, I could enjoy the beauty of the letters on the page.  I wonder what young girls do today with their first crushes.   My friends and I would write, for example,  Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Jones (name changed to protect the innocent) over and over again in cursive as a symbol of our "love."  I can't picture it in elementary print.  It just isn't the same.

And so, you can see how this morning's radio topic affected me.  The deletion of cursive from the curriculum is crushing.  Must everything beautiful be bidden bye-bye.  What's next?  Alliteration?  I have some thoughts on that too.

I Like Cute

I confess, I like anything cute.  I appreciate classic. I get professional and chic.  But what I really love . . . is cute.  Cute shoes rank high on my list, followed by cute handbags, cute puppies, and well, you get the picture.  Over the years, my husband has discovered that there is a hierarchy to cute.  If I say something is cute, that's his first hint that I might want it; but, if I say it's a "cute, little something" it is probably already in a bag in the trunk of my car.  "I saw the cutest little pair of shoes at Dillards today."  I bought them, they're mine.  "I found the cutest little dress at SteinMart, honey."  I'll be wearing it to dinner tomorrow night.  "I watched the cutest little show on TV lastnight."  We'll be TIVOing it for the rest of the season. 

As you can see from above, cute does not just apply to apparel.  It might surprise you to know that cute can even be used to describe foods.  For example, an orange is nice, but a clementine is cute.  A pie, nice . . . a tart, cute . . . a cake, fine; but cupcakes, cute.  Definitely cute!  So cute in fact that I made it my summer's goal to perfect the art of decorating the cutest little cupcakes you've ever seen.  And what ensued . . .well, let's just say, it wasn't cute.

First, I purchased a book, an entire book, on cupcake decorating.  I spent days looking through the book and finally settled on the sunflower design.  It was too cute.  An Oreo cookie would be placed in the center, delicate golden leaves would be cleverly piped around the edges, and a red M & M with tiny chocolate spots would finish off the delectable, but more importantly, the cutest little cupcake ever.  Soon, my favorite on-line catalog store was offering a frosting deco pen as their item of the week.  Actually, it turned out to be "a cute little frosting deco pen."  I bought it.  And then I planned.  School would be out soon, (I'm a teacher.) and that's when I would do it.  A whole day set aside to decorate my cupcakes.

The summer went by.  I carried my cupcake decorating book and my frosting deco pen to the beach with me, thinking a rainy afternoon would be the perfect time.  It didn't rain, I didn't make them, and I carried everything back home.

This morning I woke up and realized I had three days left before I would return to work.  The cupcakes weighed heavily on my mind.  And so, I began. 

I opened the frosting deco pen package and read the directions (I mentioned I'm a teacher, did I not?) I washed all the little tubes and tips and installed the double A batteries. I filled a cartridge with frosting and attempted to add food coloring. This was the part I had looked forward to. The fancy frosting deco pen had a stirring device that allowed you to mix the frosting and food coloring in the tube. This would make cupcake decorating easy for novices like me. However, the food coloring managed to seep out through a minute opening and run down the sides of the cartridge I was holding.. My hands were instantly stained red and yellow. Committed to the task, I continued. I decorated two, only two cupcakes, and the cartridge was empty. In order to decorate my 24 cupcakes, I would have to load that "blasted little" cartridge 12 more times. I ate an Oreo cookie and gave it some thought. And right then and there I decided, understated may be the new cute for me.

Out of the Mouths

I just spent the last week administering TCAP, our state's standardized test.  It's a measuremnet tool used to see what our students have learned throughout the year.  Are they on target?  Have they met the standards?  (Are the teachers doing their jobs?) No matter what their stanines turn out to be, I'm convinced my students will do well in life.  You see, from a very early age they develop some pretty high level life skills.  For example, they know exactly when to add the lower lip quiver to an excuse for not having their homework.  Should it be needed, puppydog eyes can be summoned quite effectively when making a request.  And stalling tactics, well that's an art children have taken to its highest level.  "What was it like when you were a kid, Mrs. Schuh?" asked just as I begin to write the homework assignment on the board, mixed with, "I think I'm having an asthma attack.  Will you write me a note so I can go to the clinic?" almost certainly mean no homework. 

I'm sure you can add more to this list.  As parents, we see it all the time. (Why, I may have used a stalling tactic or two myself.)  My next poem, "Beddy-Bye Teddy Gets Lost" was an attempt to capture some precious moments and some very clever stalling techniques. 

P.S.  I was always onto you, Jamie.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things

If you're a baby boomer, the title of this blog has to bring back memories of Art Linkletter chatting up little kids, egging them on to say something funny or inappropriately revealing about their parents.  The kids never failed to deliver, and in my world, the elementary classroom, they still do.  Their antics, conversations, and anecdotes should have made me a published author by now.  My poem, "Aunt Ruth" definitely was the result of a conversation with one of my students.  I was handed a note explaining that the parents would be out of town for the week, and the child would be staying with relatives.  The look on the child's face said it all.  Take a little truth, add a little fiction, make it rhyme, and voila . . . Aunt Ruth.  Enjoy!

Aunt Ruth
In the early days of autumn
When the leaves are brushed with gold
My folks will plan a "get-away,"
And next thing I'll be told
Is that I'm staying with my Auntie Ruth
Who lives just south of town
In a slightly weathered farmhouse
No, not weathered, it's run down!
And though I think my folks deserve
A little time to get away
I still beg, and plead, and wheedle
For them not to make me stay.
I remind them that Aunt Ruthie
Although sweet, and dear, and kind
Is bordering on senility
And may have lost her mind
How she knits and purls for hours
In her favorite rocking chair
And chats with late, great, Uncle Thad
Who isn't even there.
My dad just rolls his eyeballs
Which in esssence seals my fate
Then chucks my chin and says to me,
"You sure exaggerate!"
And I realize I'm beaten
He's convinced I stretch the truth.
They'll be going for the week end,
And I'll be staying with Aunt Ruth.

Pet Peeve

I never had a pet as a child.  Okay, there was Pretty Boy, a parakeet, but I never thought he counted.  Don't get me wrong, I liked him, but you can't take a parakeet for a walk, and they won't lick your face, and they won't eat the food your mom says to eat every bite of, that you slip to them under the table.  (Parakeets aren't under the table.) 

I had a turtle once.  I'm not sure where I got him.  I was pretty excited about him (her?) at first.  Finally, when the teacher assigned the annual story "Me and My Pet" I'd have something to write about.  My turtle didn't live long.  I didn't have much of a story. 

Years later, when George and I started dating, we went to the Kentucky State Fair.  George was impressive as he threw the hoops over the coke bottles.  So impressive he won not one, but two goldfish.  (I looked longingly at the girls who carried the humongous stuffed animals down the midway.)  Still, I proudly clutched my plastic bag of precious cargo through the Tilt-O-Whirl, Bubble Bounce, and Ferris Wheel rides.  No one told us you had to treat the water before you placed your fish into their new habitat.  In a very few minutes, my fish, Bozo and Screlda, were floating belly-up in their bowl.  These were not trick fish, they were dead.

A few years later, after the fish incident, George and I were married.  (He continued to impress me in so many ways, I couldn't resist.)  One day he came home from work with a French poodle puppy in his pocket.  (How's that for alliteration?)  We named him Chico.  There's a story behind that, but I'll save it for another post.  Chico was great.  I had a pet.  He hiked his leg on my Norfolk pine.  Chico was gone.

As you can see, I was never good with pets.  I had hoped that I might overcome this weakness.  Surely, for Jamie, our only child, I could rise up and meet the challenge.  But no, though we tried gerbils (Tammy and Christina, God rest their souls), and two cats, it just wasn't meant to be.  I imagined Jamie would harbor ill feelings toward me the rest of his life (Though I bought him the $100 Nike tennis shoes he had to have in 3rd grade.  What was I thinking?!)  I was pretty sure there would be a dog somewhere in his future.  I wrote the following poem with all this in mind.

I'm Out of the Country

I've been on Spring Break this week, my favorite of all vacations.  I've been "out of the country," or so a former teacher friend of mine would say.  She never actually left home, but in essence she let us all know that she wouldn't be available.

Spring Break is a time of rejuvenation, and for me, that means no schedule.  I know lots of people love to fill their calendars with social events.  They get excited about the activities that they see before them.  I, on the other hand, love a blank calendar.  I want time to "piddle", to act on a whim, to daydream.  And so I've piddled. 

I figured out how to load pictures onto a picture frame I received as a gift.  OK, I didn't piddle, I whiled away hours.  Each picture took me somewhere.  I visited almost all of my dearest friends and relatives.  I thanked God for all the people and experiences He has placed in my life.  I thought about the children I teach, spent time with each one individually, thought about their talents, and imagined where their lives would lead them. 

And I ironed.  Yes, I'm one of those people.  I married an ironer, and we proudly passed the skill on to our son.  The thing about ironing is, it's a mindless task.  Can you see where I'm going?  You can do it and go places.  I made a return trip to Paris, strolled the streets of my childhood recalling who lived in each house,
remembered Vacation Bible School and the Strawberry Man.  I pictured the flowers I would plant once the threat of frost passes.  And, I have a closet full of clean clothes.

My "return flight" arrives back in town on Sunday evening.  My alarm will ring again on Monday morning.  I'll greet my students at the door.  We'll cover all the required lessons and move according to schedule.  I'll prepare dinner . . . OK, we'll grab a bite somewhere, I'll grade papers, we'll watch a little TV, and I'll to it all again the next day.  And it's OK, because . . . I've been out of the country.