Walking Cane Letters

Handwriting on hold--Another Wall Street Journal book review has enticed me to reserve the library's copy of Script & Scribbles, by Kitty Burns Florey. Cullen Murphy's review, "Handwriting Is on the Wall: Penmanship skills are being slowly erased in a typing and texting age" is fun if you have memories of elementary penmanship exercises or enjoy a lovely handwritten note.

Somewhere in one of my too, too many boxes, there's a small piece of paper with my great aunt Emma's examples of the Palmer Method's "walking cane letters". Aunt Em resolved to improve my awkward fourth grade cursive by convincing me of the beauty and legibility of nice penmanship. She also convinced me the discipline to master the skill was worth the effort. I believe it still is. Smooth cursive is faster than block printing, and causes less arm and hand fatigue when you set your paper correctly. Yes, I'm a right-handed female! How did you know?

The Walking Cane letters are the upper case H, K, M, N, W, X. Forming those letters began by making the loop of the cane handle, then its stick sitting nicely on the line.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder