When was the last time you (by hand) wrote a letter?
 

Wow, my handwriting sucks.

I went to my card shop and they were closed. Not surprised. Looked across the parking lot to Target, and there was a line waiting to get in. Screw that.

I went home and wrote my mom a letter! For Mother’s Day. It was surprisingly nice to sit down with a nice smooth pen and crank out a bunch of sentences I thought my mom would like to hear. I had to go slow and easy. I tend to rush and literally SKIP letters. For example: The word “love” might look like “L.VE” with just a big pause in the pen strike denoting the important “O”. “I live you” has a different impact.

Again, my handwriting is shameful and lazy. I wish I could write more. I just don’t have anyone’s physical mailing address. It’s a dead skill.

I remember my parents had a leather-bound notebook with everyone’s address and phone numbers. They also had stationary. Whoa! Old school. I don’t even know where my fountain pens are! Or my ink jars. Shameful.

( I bet my nutty mom is still pissed I didn’t spend money on a proper card - oh well, I can bring this up with my therapist)

In my grade-school classroom, we were hammered with cursive writing. Our desktops had built-in ink wells for our fountain pens.
Now, after not using that skill for years...it takes a few reps to get it back...but it does come back.

My handwriting has never been good (I probably should have been a Dr). I went to a private school from the 5 grade through half of the 8th grade. We had to write in cursive all of the time for everything, and we were graded on penmanship, at least for 5-7. It used to keep me off of the honor roll due to getting Cs and Ds in penmanship.

Now I rarely hand write anything, and when I do it's almost entirely printing. If I need or try to write in cursive, it's abysmal. I can read it, and I can write it if I go really slowly and concentrate.

I don't hand write anything unless I absolutely have to.

I wrote a February birthday letter to my friend in Kuaii. We've been friends for over 40 years and a present (other than for Christmas) just doesn't work anymore. So I wrote to her about our friendship and what it means to me. I used my good fountain pen and nice high grade paper that really takes the ink.

Boot camp 1982. Drill made us write letters home under threat! Good times!

HA! I remember doing that in '70!

I had chitty handwritting back in school, now as an IT'er, i'm so used to typing things.. i can't write clean to save my life.

I have a dymo label printer to print adresses for letters
and a stamp with my name and adress on to stamp return adresses or put my tag on forms :D

Dear Penthouse Forum....

My Grandmother had the absolutely most beautiful hand writing. Reading a letter or note from her was to view a true work of literature and art. I still have the letters she wrote me all those years ago. It is as if you are being touched by her all over again; through the ink and paper.

^^^ Yes, it's almost a lost art now. Penmanship means nothing..compared to 50 years ago.

Like Dan and Steve..
I'm the keeper of old..
letter's written during WW1 and 2..
Calligraphy like..

btw..
most German kid's learned cursive's using a Pelikan pen..

Rika

My handwriting is horrible. I have a 8.5 x 11 piece of paper that is usually the back of some invoice or statement I was going to send to a client but I noticed a change to be made. So keep those mistakes and a something to scribble a note to myself and make a list of to do things. It takes a few weeks to fill it up before I shred it. Sometime it is comical to see the different reminders I scribbled down and try to remember why I wrote down 291052-56 or 9:45 or the name of a street or county.

I can't image trying to write a actual letter by hand. I can type it and proof it and print it but mostly email it or whatever.

So to answer the original question, likely sometime in the very early 1980s before I got my first computer and printer.

I write letters to patients fairly often, today for example.

My handwriting is comical. Thank God I type fast!

But it must be readable by patients.:D

It's been decades since I wrote an entire letter by hand. My handwriting is variable. Some days it's great and some days it looks like it was written by a chimpanzee.

Mine’s not too bad. If I could read it, it would be nice. 🤪

They were taught "The Palmer method"...a method that didn't stick with me. I now wish it had. I was amazed at how legible, flowing, and similar in style the writing of my mother and her friends was.

I developed my own style..easy to read when I was younger. Looked at a song mix cassette I made maybe 4 decades ago...amazed I could write so small yet clearly. Today? Now age 76, with a problem my PA says is a "non specific tremor"? Can't write for beans.

Just in the nick of time came along printers that let me play with font styles and sizes..

Odd but true. My handwriting is best using a #2 wooden pencil. Not a brand new one. One sharpened down third. The lead has the perfect drag for me.

I hand wrote a short note to Seahawk for the Christmas gift exchange. It felt awkward and looked terrible.

Back in college one of my study tricks was to use a Pentel 0.07 with soft lead and recopy all my notes immediately after a lecture in the student union while watching the girls walk by. It was decent and legible.

My skills have degraded.

A few times a year i hand write an address on an envelope. Its hard and scary. I usually mess up but its the numbers that count

My father in law worked for the USPS. He passed away a few years ago, leaving my mother in law. Getting his USPS pension paperwork updated to show my mother in law instead of him as the recipient required, by law, a handwritten letter. Not typed on a typewriter, not typed in MS Word and printed, but hand written. No copies either. Unbelievable in this day and age.

I wrote a birthday letter in March to my dad on his 87 b-day......of course no response or call.....

It was bit shaky and my hand cramped up. Of course it could be my arthritis.

The Palmer method
 

Pic of the writing style in this article:

https://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-palmer-method.htm

I can't read my own writing two minutes after I wrote it. I am an engineer though.

Wait what, you're an MD..
You write letters to your patients (not to their pharmacist or GP or specialist)
That don't make sense.

so how does that work?!!?!

dear patient
scribblescribblescriblle scribblescribble scribbleimes
sribblescribllekey scribblescribble scribblek
scribblescribblescriblle scribblether
scribblesriblle scribblescribbletoo
ibbleribblete bribblescribblefu

yours, Tobra

and then printed in the stationary in a computer font:

PS take this to your local pharmacist for translation



?!!?? like that?
oooooorrrrr
i mean.. I'm sure everybody is curious now


;)


EDIT
or are you some kind of MD that is specialized in treating other MD's or Pharmacists? ???
for instance are you specialized in Geriatric Medicine for Retired MD's?

I've been the most horrible writer from the very beginning. In third grade in 1951, we had to do writing exercises (some of you other old codgers will remember) where we made connected loops that looked like a stretched spring. Mine were all over the place no matter how much I tried. That was the year I was kept after school so much, I started telling my parents I was helping the teacher erase the blackboards & such. That only lasted until my parents talked to the teacher. I sometimes can't read my own writing after week or so, so I was happy to learn to type and also when computers and printers came along.

Cursive is no longer taught in schools. It won't be long until most people won't know how to even read it.

To answer the question: writing someone is so much more personal and intimate. I hope it comes back.

We should write each other letters.

For practice. :). This can be our safe place.

Remembering when some of us pitched in on a school project here...trying to send postcards from every state. Then discovering how hard it is to find postcards these days.

Soon..hand writing will go the way of the cassette tape.

Imagine how I felt :cool:

It was great, Bob.

The Nuns were rough on my cursive style until I wrote an essay in the 3rd grade in block print, which I have always preferred. Marv was right on the money.

Sister Peter Ellen was shocked: "This I can read. Keep doing it."

I write quite a bit for my company, mostly notes from GTM/Skype/Zoom meetings. I prefer legal pads and felt tip pens to takes notes, much easier than typing for me, plus I can draw in real time.

I turn those notes into minutes for the the record, action items, etc. I keep the legal pads as well.

Nothing says I care more than minutes and action items:D

Interesting, it emphasizes arm movements rather than finger movements. That explains my issue. All of my writing was done using my fingers (and it sucked).

I think the last time I wrote a letter was when I was courting my wife. I didn't use cursive though as mine sucks. I used a form of block print, trying to emulate what I used to see on architectural drawings. Today I can hardly write my name. The muscle memory isn't what it used to be I guess.

My cursive was legible but never neat. In 8th grade drafting class we had to print everything and I liked that much better. Plus all my older brother's letters from Vietnam were neatly printed. I thought that was cool so started printing everything. Probably wrote a printed letter last sometime in the 1990s. However, when my kids were in college in the late 2000s, I wrote them post cards all the time so they would have something in their mail box. I also wrote my mom post cards till she passed away in 2007. I usually made my own out of some silly photo that I would print with my computer on card stock. The internet has always been full of goofy photos good for a laugh.

I wrote a hand letter to one of my INTEL officer’s Mom 2 weeks ago.

image parf with real letters.

Dear poop head.

your insane ranting in the previous letter just goes to show that you are thick as a plank.
Obviously you are dillusional if you think this corona virus isn't a WMD planted by the chinese with the sole purpose of bringing down the Fortune 500.
Furthermore, your support for that pinko commie rapist Biden makes me wanna puke.

not so best regards
instead, piss up a rope will ya
yo mama

Couldn't send my mother flowers for her birthday in early April, so I wrote her a letter instead. It's a nice habit for people you care about. I used to correspond with one friend in particular via letters until the arthritis in his hand got bad enough that he had to switch to email. I enjoyed it. I do occasionally write letters to friends, and at Christmas time.

Oh, I’ll need green fountain pen ink!

My handwriting has totally gone to hell...I don't even try anymore. I would occasionally write a letter to friends or relatives, but when email came on the scene, that was the end of that. I don't even sign my name to most things any more...just my initials.

When I first started out in the engineering biz, I made all my drawings on vellum and neatly hand-printed the dimensions and notes in pencil. Once CAD took over for drawing boards and T-squares, my printing soon went downhill pretty fast.

On the other hand, my 90-year-old aunt had the most beautiful flowing script I've ever seen. Every letter she sent me was a work of art.

Just called my 84 year old Dad and asked him about the Palmer Method. 15 minute response. Was fun.

He talked about the practice sessions he had to go through, line height on the paper, etc. Then finally how they sent a sample of the handwriting off to the Palmer Institute and a certificate was returned.

He attended a private school and noted public schools did not receive this training but that was small town Ohio in probably '46-47 when he was 10 (if that's the age they taught kids the method). Metro areas may have offered it in public schools.

It was profound how lucid his description was.