Deltiologist

Grandmother was a deltiologist

(she didn’t even know it)

postcards came to her

on special occasions

when her children took a trip

& when her husband

lived in Kansas City

that’s how they communicated

there was on most cards

an image worth keeping

Now I have her postcards

with handwritten messages

in cursive script

slanted out of a fountain pen

how the weather was

how are you I am fine

how your uncle got the flu

he is fine now

write again when you can

love & kisses xoxoxo

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NaPoWriMo prompt on something handmade and given to you. Handwriting was once an art even when sent on a postcard.

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Penmanship

Penmanship was always my favorite class.  There was a fountain pen and a bottle of Skrip ink, usually black.  The ink bottle had a little curved shelf on its inside where the ink could gather.  Put the nib of the fountain pen in and suck the ink with a lever on the side of the pen.  All this while sitting at a wood desk placed in rows by Mrs. Manocchio, my fifth grade teacher.

 

Trying to keep the ink between the lines of the paper, I made continuous circles round and round practicing to hold the pen in comfort, to get use to the flow of the nib.  Prepare the hand to loop and turn and form letters, then words, a complete sentence and the ultimate paragraph.  I was learning cursive writing with just the right slant and height of the i, dotted in just the right place between the lines, forming the perfect penmanship.

 

recall school days

labored for words on paper

ink dot on the snow
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dVerse prompt on handwriting which is becoming a lost art