<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(1, 21, 77);" class=""><span style="font-style: normal;" class="">Tabula Rasa</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;" class=""><b class=""></b><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Children are no longer taught</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">to write cursive. That beautiful hand of my father’s,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">no less impressive when he signed a check</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">as when he signed his letters and reports.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">And my mother’s hand, learned the Palmer way,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">“move your hand from the elbow,” she told me,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">demonstrating on the kitchen table. </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">I never could even approximate her beautiful script</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">now preserved, along with my father’s love letters </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">in the trunk In my garage. </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Letter after letter, back and forth,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">they wrote, passionate and private, never imagining </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">their children would one day sit and read them aloud,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">marveling at their youth, their ardor, their </div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">carefully drawn words, their own calligraphy.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">A hundred years later, my brother and I,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">sitting at the old round oak table,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">read in tandem, these words of passion, of love,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">of forever, written by these two strangers,</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">our parents.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> - fran claggett-holland</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></body></html>