My handwriting’s always been an embarrassment. Way back in elementary school, while most of the others were developing a clear, sometimes graceful hand (especially the girls), my penmanship showed no improvement.
That’s what it said on my report card, time after time “Penmanship: Shows no improvement.” (Once it wasn’t “no,” but “little.” That was a banner month.) And of course each one of those report cards was signed by the nun-of-that-year with the precision and clarity of a steel engraving. And then it was countersigned by my mother in her lovely hand, “Catherine G. Atwell,” with soaring capital letters that I could love (as I did her) but never hope to imitate.
But I sweated on, wrecking points (we’d begun with steeltip pens, mind you, dipping them in ink wells built into the desk) and trying to produce enough legibility that I’d eventually be able to write a thank-you card or one of sympathy without requiring the recipient to use a magnifying glass or a translator.
Despite scrawling reams of class notes at top speed (some profs are sadists when they lecture), I did manage some improvements in legibility.
And when, in my own college career, I ended up a dean, I could produce a signature on certificates and diplomas that was downright decent. But I still couldn’t carry on at length without my deanly hand collapsing into the disreputable. I was good for a sprint, you see, but not at running the distance. As they say these days, Fuhgetaboutit!
Well, I got through my professional years backed up by a superb secretary. She’d produce a beautiful typescript from my dictation. And then I’d sign the letter or whatever on the space she’d left me, just about a high-falutin’ typing of my name and title. Bless Peggy! She probably should have been awarded part of my retirement, Once I was living in Fly Creek, I thought penmanship pressure was over. And it largely was. Bruce Hall’s didn’t much care how clear my signature was, and neither did Agway or the bank or Doubleday or the Fly Creek General Store. Everybody knew me. I probably could have signed with the stomp of an inked fist and nobody would have cared.
But I didn’t have to. I still had a pretty good signature, relic of my deanly days. And I felt superior when I stood in line behind a Bassett doc and saw him or her sign with a dash or a scrawl that didn’t begin to look like a name. I’m guessing, though, that downgrading one’s signature is taught in medical school, since they all do it. I must ask a few.
Well, whatever smugness was mine is now gone. Parkinsonism has reduced my handwriting to hieroglyphics, and my signature is usually as bad as any doc’s.
If I try to write a short formal note, I start the first line with strong intentions and deliberate control. “Keep those letters large and readable,” I coacme. But halfway along the first line I’ve largely lost control.
I’ve dropped the reins and I’m being run away with. Worse, my letters are getting smaller and smaller; halfway along the first line they’ve become a track of ants — not big ones, but the tiny black ones that parade out of the kitchen wainscoting and attack the sugar canister.
Oh, what would the sisters say? What, especially, would that largish fourth-grade nun say, the one that labored so hard to make me write presentably? She’d give me extra Palmermethod exercises of endlessly repeated o’s and ovals and diagonal lines joined at either top or bottom. Once, in desperation, she leaned over me from behind, took my sweaty hand firmly in hers, and guided my scratchy steel-tip across the lined paper.
Now, I mentioned that she was a largish nun; not so much in height but in bulk. It was hard to tell her size because nuns of that time were enveloped in enough black serge to stock a drygoods shop; and her order also had a helmet of tightly fitted, fiercely starched linen, plus a veil liner of the same stuff, plus a broad panel of it that extended from shoulder to shoulder and was meant to camouflage anything womanly about them.
But when Sister Anonymia, standing behind seated me, leaned over in desperation and grabbed my pen hand, she squashed herself against my back.
Sweet mother of pearl! There were bosoms in there! Nuns had bosoms! My heart, only 10 years in use and in great shape, nearly stopped. But Sister pressed on, literally and figuratively.
“I can’t see why you can’t get something so simple, Jimmy!” She said this as her hand guided mine through the circles and ovals and diagonals. “Are you paying attention? Just what are you thinking of?”
Well, Sister, it sure as hell wasn’t the Palmer Method! Now, what about the Blue Rabbit in the headline? That, friends, is what’s saved my signature from Parkinsonism, at least so far. I’ll tell you about it in the next column.
Columns
From Fly Creek: Cheers for the Blue Rabbit!
- Columns
-
-
From Fly Creek: Revving up for spring
Time to bring you up to date on Fly Creek’s happy clambering into Spring. First, the eatery scene. “Is Jerry’s open yet?” The answer is, “Oh, yes!” The porches are freshly stained; the lawns a uniform green, and the hop vines are already climbing the posts on the covered side deck. Blue and I went up there to lunch earlier this week, and I celebrated spring with my traditional bacon, onion and Swiss cheese hamburger. We two sat on the deck, enjoying the broad view and some spectacular clouds marching across, up toward Schuyler Lake.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: More from 1986 ...
This week we continue with the discussion of telephone service from the pre-dial days. On March 12 we noted that: “No one has yet produced a telephone directory from pre-dial days, but Doug Preston of New Hartford recalls that some business (which one?) in the village had the phone number 7.”
Continued ... -
Home Notes: Celebrations abound at the Thanksgiving Home
April was a month of celebrations and much to appreciate. We had a 90th birthday celebration for Wanda Noyes on April 4 including her family and friends. Personal care staff Dee Bouck worked with residents to hand paint Easter eggs for the tree in the activity room.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: 1986 continues ...
This week we continue our journey through the columns of 1986 with the answer to the question “for whom, according to tradition, was Hannah’s Hill named?”
Continued ... -
Book Notes: Baseball book features local contributors
Baseball is part of the nation’s fabric. Most kids have a memory of the game either from playing Little League, attending a major league contest or meeting a favorite player. In Cooperstown that feeling is magnified since we are the official home of baseball. We get to see firsthand what has made the sport the national pastime.
Continued ... -
From Fly Creek: Ya really wanna know?
SETTING: Fly Creek General Store. CAST: Assorted seated geezers, drinking coffee. [Door opens, enter heavy-set geezer; walking slowly with wide stance, maybe prostatitis.]
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: Returning to 1986 ...
For the past several years now we have undertaken sharing some of the area’s oral history we have collected over the years that we have written this column. Therefore, this year, we would like to go back to 1986 to share that rather unusual year. Those who were here then no doubt remember that it was that year that the village celebrated the bicentennial of its founding.
Continued ... -
From Fly Creek: For reasons unknowable
[Jim’s reached back to 2002 to share one of his favorite columns.] My father was born as the last century began into a river village in tidewater Maryland. He told me once of a man there in his boyhood who, like so many, made a thin living tonging for oysters in the cold months and, in the hot and humid ones, crabbing and raising vegetables.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: CCS balancing act ... side two
Last week we shared a number of activities in which students at CCS can participate. We thought it was an impressive, if not overwhelming, list. And we are indeed pleased that the young people of our area have these opportunities. However, we think it is also important to keep in mind that these undertakings do have a cost associated with them. They are not free. In fact there are, no doubt, those who would say they do not come cheap.
Continued ... -
From Fly Creek: A graceful crowd
Make of this what you will, friends. I feel I’m really meant to share it with you. Despite good medication for my Parkinsonism, every four or five weeks I can sensethe symptoms building up on me, giving me more than ordinary trouble. Lately it’s been falls, and last week brought a typical one. I’d gone out to get the paper, moving along with penguin steps on the snowcoved ice patches, and usingmy spike-tipped cane the waya climber uses an ice axe. But circumstances overcame me. Parkinson’s wipes out the possibility of multi-tasking.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: This and that and the other side ...
We note that the CCS Class of 2012 is presenting its senior class play, “Snow White” by Tim Kelly, this week with performances 7:30 p.m Thursday and Friday, March 29 and 30, and at 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 31. All performances will be at the Nicolas J. Sterling Auditorium at the Middle/High School.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: That green thing ...
Of late we have noticed that our email inbox has been much busier than usual. In fact, we find ourselves hard pressed to keep up with all the various messages we receive. As a result we suspect we have not answered some in as timely a fashion as might be thought appropriate.
Continued ... -
From Fly Creek: What you need to know
In their last Sunday’s bulletins, all 84 churches of Otsego County were to have carried announcements of an important meeting; most of them did. But because the announcement is so important, and not just to the churched, here it is again.
Continued ... -
Book Notes: Living the magic of ‘Hoosier’
A lot of people consider “Hoosiers” the best sports film of all time. The 1986 classic follows the exploits of a fictional small town Indiana high school basketball team in 1952 as it attempts to achieve the impossible dream of a state championship. The story is inspired by the true life achievement of the 1954 Milan team, who with an enrollment of only 161 students shocked big city power Muncie Central on a last second shot to win the state title. It’s the kind of sports story that represents something that is hard to grasp unless you live in a small town.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: The most perfect village... home to heavy industry?
We suspect we would get a whole lot more accomplished if we spent less time thinking, pondering and musing about things. In fact, there is a good possibility we might actually have completed our goal of cleaning the basement if we only focused on the task at hand, instead of trying to figure out the world around us. It almost makes us wonder if it is possible to think too much about things. We certainly hope not because should that be the case, we are in deep trouble.
Continued ... -
Up On Hawthorn Hill: The past in the present
Clichés abound about the value of photographs. Most are probably true at least to a certain extent. What I do know about an image is that it represents something of the past that is not the pastitself. But that is the power of any image. It represents something that once was. The beauty of an image, revisited, is that it functions as a catalystfor reliving in the present a past experience. My own view, one that I thank the Spanish writer Jorge Luis Borges for, is that all we ever can experience is the present.
Continued ... -
Home Notes: Workshops held for Thanksgiving Home residents
We welcomed Linda Keller, Ph.D. of the Bassett Research Institute and Ida Baker of NYCAMH who presented a six-week workshop for residents and staff.
Continued ... -
From Fly Creek: Late-winter hamlet news
Well, at least I’m “guessing” it’s late winter now — in the winter that wasn’t. But, if not snow, I can provide a flurry of Fly Creek news to share with you, scooping Associated Press, Reuter’s, and United Press International, not to mention all local news services except our General Store.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: Waiting for spring to have sprung ...
Difficult as it to believe, both January and February seem to have flown by and we find ourselves turning the calendar over to the month of March, which we have long thought is one of the more dreary months of the year. Of course, as in the pastthere are signs of spring as reflected by the tapping of the maple trees. For many years, the trees sprouted buckets to capture their all important sap. However, we now know to look for the sap collection lines that are strung from tree to tree.
Continued ... -
Book Notes: Kennedy: a unique individual
It’s been almost 50 years since the Kennedy assassination shocked the nation. Since then much has been written about President John F. Kennedy and whether he would have achieved his destiny (whatever that may have been) if he had lived. It is said he inspired young people in a way that has never been equaled. And there is the notion of Camelot, espoused by his widow Jackie, that there will never be a time of hope and promise like that again.
Continued ...
-
From Fly Creek: Revving up for spring
