I'm still on the hand-written word and it's because of Marla that I'm adding more thoughts. Some years ago I had a fellowship to the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe with the express purpose of researching and writing a play about Alice James, sister of Henry and William. My Harvard Officer's card gave me access to the Houghton LIbrary where I had to leave everything in the cloakroom, taking nothing but a pencil and a piece of paper past the green baize door to enter the hallowed space. (They probably allow laptops now?) Inside I signed my name in blood and received two boxes: one with Henry's letters to Alice and one with Alice's letters to Henry, plus her companion/caregiver's letters to Henry as well. (Katherine...Loring, I think it was, have to check). Anyway, it was then that I got the opening scene, actually the set of the play I was to write. I saw Alice on her deathbed while Henry and Katherine kept vigil. The letters, especially the last ones, of Henry to William and Katherine to Henry, were blood-warm. I felt the emotions, I heard the silence, flowing into me through the words, written by hand. That's what my friend Marla brought back to me with her thoughtful note. I guess this is what makes hoarders of us all, a total reluctance to toss a piece of paper with a dead hand's words written on it. I guess that's about as close to immortality as anyone can hope for, living on in memory through (written) words. I guess that's all for now.

I'm still thinking about the disappearance of cursive writing - aka "joined" writing. My friend Marla has some very apt thoughts about this, and I quote her comment: "The legibility of my handwriting continues to deteriorate each and every year, but I bemoan the disappearance of cursive writing to the Nth degree to all who will listen to me, and some who don't want to listen too! Future generations won't experience the intimate pleasure of reading love letters exchanged during the best of times and the worst of times... won't be able to read their ancestors long-treasured letters from the front lines of war... won't be able to read birth certificates, death certificates, and even handwritten wills... history will be sadder and less interesting for the loss of this ability. Decry this 'advancement' to the Heavens!!!! :-( " Thank you, dear heart, you added things I hadn't thought of. Has anyone read the novel, "Canticle for Leibowitz", by Walter Miller? It's an eras-long story based in a monastery where generations of monks cope with the world that keeps getting wiped out. After the first disaster a monk finds a few notes surviving from a wrecked fall-out shelter, buried along with its owner, Leibowitz. He takes them back to the monastery and the monks create beautiful illuminated manuscripts from them. One of the papers is Leibowitz's grocery list: bagels, salami, dill pickles - like that. The other is the schematic of a circuit box, the study of which eventually leads to the rediscovery of electricity and eventually another holocaust. Never under-estimate the power of the written word.