In 2006 I had already started writing. In fact I had written many different things before, but this was before the internet really took off. Although this next entry is a bit silly, I do feel that with today’s issues and the change in technology, it’s relevant. 

Enjoy

“I miss writing with pencils. In grade school all we ever wanted was to write in ink but were told by all of our teachers that you “couldn’t fix mistakes” if you were using an ink pen. Then someone brilliant came out with erasable pens! Do you remember those? They came in four different colors; red, blue, black and green. Teachers would still say no. Back to pencils we went. Grudgingly using the pencil sharpeners attached to the wall of our classroom, preferable when the teacher was talking.

I remember watching the boys in our classroom, one holding a pencil in both hands and another slapping another pencil at the victim. They were happy and content when one of the pencils fell or broke, which was exactly the point.

Many innocent #2 pencils fell victim to this horrible fate.

Then came high school and we were now allowed our cherished ink pens. Though, on final draft papers only. How many of us threw out countless sheets of paper due to mistakes that were not correctable? Oh, how we hated to admit that our fourth and fifth grade teachers were right! Eventually we were able to write our papers in beautiful blue or black ink and have them error free!

Then a new color of pen became our Arch Enemy! The dreaded Red pen! Our English teachers were merciless in their critique of our hard earned work. Slashes, word and commas made our amazing works of art look like graffiti on our college ruled pages. No erasing available now. It was destined for parental eyes and those were almost as scary as the Red pen itself.

Now, as an adult with a child of my own I look back at my school experience and wonder about what could have been different. I have come to this conclusion.

Nothing!

But I do miss writing with pencils.”  9/1/2006

Now, as an adult I choose to use my cherished pencils. And I am a dying breed. The children of today don’t use them often enough in my opinion. They are doing more typing and using Google Docs more often. Penmanship hasn’t been taught in years and cursive is becoming obsolete.

I like my technology, but I like doing certain things “old school” as well.

When was the last time you sat down and wrote something

without the use of a keyboard?