The Palmer Method ‘No one appreciates beautiful handwriting anymore,’ I’ve heard several people – usually over 60 – bemoaning today’s preference for keyboarding and block lettering. At the risk of sounding like a Baby Boomer longing for the past, I’m still a lover of cursive handwriting. Also known as script, writing in cursive with pen to paper is a conduit for the senses. Is the pen mightier than the sword? I think so. My first drafts power their way to creation, written in script, before they become editable Word docs. The Palmer method, developed by Austin Palmer in the late 19th century, employed big swings, loops on the capital B’s and D’s like cloverleafs on a highway, and the healthy tilt toward the right, each letter ending and connecting to the next with an upward swing. I remember learning the Palmer method in Catholic elementary school. Penmanship was a line-item subject on the report card, deserving a grade for the quality of your handwriting. In class, the alphabet cards stared down at us, fastened to the wall above the black board. I stared back, studying those beautiful symbols. A means for me to be exact, neat, perfect. And to get an A! I’d sit mesmerised watching Sr. Francis Xavier write homework assignments on the board, perfection flowing in chalk before my eyes. So, I’d practice slowly, meticulously, with a fine-point fountain pen, crafting the shapely alphabet forms in between the protective borders of the blue-lined paper. My father must have learned cursive writing the same way. He possessed the most beautiful
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handwriting, as beautiful as those alphabet letters I studied in school. Dad’s signature might have impressed Mr. Palmer himself. Large and bold. The R in Robert orbiting in a wide ellipse on top; and the lower leg flowing smoothly into the o; and the b tilted just right, with the little tail blending smoothly into the e; and the r in the shape of a v connecting to the final t. In honour of his father, Dad’s signature included the Jr. long after his father had died. Robert Samuels, Jr. The capital S almost like a musical clef and the lowercase letters traveling in waves to the l and the final s that rose up like the tide. But there was so much more to his handwriting than its appearance. Whatever Dad felt, he couldn’t say with his writing. Like many of us, he relied on Hallmark to express the tender feelings in his heart. He once sent me a Valentine with factory-printed words like proud of you, good daughter, always in my heart, things he could never utter. But he signed his card Love, Dad in that artistic handwriting, his expression of love reserved, safe from vulnerability. When I told him how much the card meant to me, he revealed the amount of time he had spent in the store, reading dozens of cards on the rack, until he had found just the right one. It took many years for me to grasp the depth of my father’s love. As a child, his gruffness at times and especially his remoteness, made me believe he didn’t love me at all. As a young adult, I didn’t recognise his attempts to protect me from my naive flirtations with a world he considered dangerous. When I, at last, matured and took a nuanced look at the man himself,
his r altho love do it Whe hear me w Whe prot were one I eve Dad ties, spea out a Satu As m the i in Sa verle Dad style oped with Rob
