Little Circles, Big Circles

I am a child of the Age of Non-Writers. My parents have told me so, and I think I believe them on this one. I can vividly remember being mesmerized by television --- Sesame Street, Apollo 11, and Watergate --- before I ever stared down the barrel of an Eberhard Faber Sure Grip #2 Pencil to scratch out my first of many essays on "My Summer Vacation". If you had asked me then, in Third Grade, to compare and contrast each of these three major American events, it would probably have come out something like: "Sesame Street are a fun show. Bert and Ernie and I like Cookie Monster. Spacemen eats Tang. Nixon is a crook." I still couldn't do much better.

Who is to blame for my lack of penmanship and grammar skill? I place blame squarely on the Russians. When Sputnik first captured the attention of the world in 1957, I am under the impression that almost every school in America soon after pledged itself to catching the Commies by beefing up education in the sciences. English teachers, whose autocracy had been unchallenged since the death of Latin and rhetoric, found themselves sorely lacking in marketing opportunities. Lab equipment to "beat those dang blasted Reds" was evidently more sexy than a new First Folio Shakespearean anthology.

When I think back to my elementary school education, I remember sweating it out, trying to learn to write in cursive. I hated it. The art of control was sorely lacking in my right hand -- thank God at least that I wasn't a leftie, smudging graphite across the page as I went. Printing seemed so much easier, a more geometrically logical form of self-expression, and besides, hadn't I just learned that in kindergarten? How's that for technological obsolescence....a man on the moon and I've got to practice my up and down strokes.

Now that I'm approaching the age where I better appreciate well-constructed communication, the computer has suddenly taken my penmanship out of the equation. The word processing program, and invention of the late 20th Century, may soon be replaced by voice and gesture recognition. With all this new technology, I can only begin to wonder -- will my child be taught public speaking, emoting and gesturing before the capital letter G? Maybe those interactive video games aren't so bad after all.

rjw, 4/17/96