Did you know the Library of Congress is looking for volunteers to transcribe old documents such as the writings of Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass and Leonard Bernstein?
Being a nosy person, I would love to read the journals/correspondence/whatever of famous types but, to be fair, I also read grocery lists dropped by anonymous people so I can try and figure out what they are making for dinner.
According to the By the People website, the group sponsoring the gig, “Volunteer-created transcriptions improve search, readability, and access to handwritten and typed documents for everyone.”
I have heard that with so many people unable/unwilling to read cursive nowadays, transcribing the documents will help all those young’uns who never had to read their teacher’s comments written in red ink and ALWAYS in cursive, scribbled across the top of their essays with nary a smiley face in sight.
Sometimes I like to leave notes on our kitchen table written in cursive just to annoy my sons. It works, especially when I combine print with cursive and use tantalizing words like “inheritance” and “favorite child.”
But in all honesty, I can’t really throw any stones. My own cursive handwriting has deteriorated to the point where I am often unable to translate what I’ve written five minutes after I’ve put down my pen. The only time my handwriting looks good is when I use a felt tip pen on lined paper and write after imbibing at least three large cups of coffee, a combo that also makes me use many exclamation points.
Keyboards and smartphones are surely to blame for the general lack of handwriting skills in today’s society, along with a host of other skills including conversational, social, and the ability to make eye contact with the cashier at your local grocery store.
I feel a little sorry for the kids who don’t learn how to read or write cursive anymore, much like I feel sorry for young people who have never heard of Burt Reynolds.
Cursive was one of those subjects, along with music and gym, that was hard to fail, even if you still had horrible handwriting at the end of the school year. It was also one of those subjects you truly could do better at if you applied yourself, unlike music and gym; if you were tone-deaf or completely uncoordinated, all the practice in the world wasn’t going to help much.
Off topic but another reason I feel sorry for school kids today is because none of them will know the joy of having a “movie” day or even a film-strip day. It was such a thrill to enter your classroom and see a projector poised for science class. At that moment you knew you were going to get to watch something instead of listening to the teacher drone on about the life cycle of centipedes or the formation of metamorphic rocks.
I’m not sure if having a movie day would incite the same kind of reaction now since people of all ages watch movies around the clock. How thrilling can it be to go to school and watch a movie after sitting in front of TikTok from the moment you wake up?
Before I get too maudlin about the good ol’ days, let me get back to volunteering to become a transcriber for the Library of Congress, which you have to admit sounds quite impressive.
“Sorry! Can’t get together with you this weekend. I’m working on transcribing a letter Frederick Douglass wrote in 1843.” Isn’t that classier than “Sorry! Can’t get together with you this weekend. I have to finish watching the ‘Love Boat’ marathon on Tubi”?
Then again, while this sounds like it might be an interesting volunteer opportunity, it’s going to be challenging. A lot of old cursive writing makes my chicken scratches look like the handwriting on an invitation to Buckingham Palace. The letter “f’” often looks like an “s” … or is it the other way around? And the language — thou and thee and undoubtedly many multi-syllable words most of us don’t know.
Hmm. Maybe I’ll stick with the “Love Boat.” It may not be classy, but at least it uses mainly single-syllable words.
Nell Musolf is a freelance writer based in Mankato. She can be reached at nmusolf@gmail.com.