HOLLY NADLER

508-274-2329

(hollynadler@gmail.com)

A problem has arisen in the postmodern (I don’t know what postmodern means but it sounds so intellectual) era of e-mailing, texting, tweeting and twittering: No one knows how to write or, more importantly, read, handwriting anymore. Is it even taught in schools these days, or do kindergarten teachers ask their tots to get out their Blackberries? Seems like boomers were the last generation to rely on scratching words onto pieces of paper with something called a pen. Once the last of us falls face forward into our morning bowl of granola and prune yogurt, handwriting will be lost to us, like typewriters.

We’ve become so sloppy with our handwriting that, while we may be able to read our own — mostly — it’s nigh impossible to read anyone else’s. The other day my husband, Jack (yes, I know, last week he was my fiancé, the week before that we had just met) showed me his TO DO list. I perused items like Try toilet paper (he claimed he had written Buy toilet paper but my first thought was “Oh my, has he never made use of that particular product?”), Do lindy (translation: Do laundry, not the 40s dance step), and Puke up dog food (you can guess for yourself what he meant there).

One problem with indecipherable penmanship is that it takes time to decode. While it’s the loveliest thing in the world to receive a beautiful card, the joy is slightly mitigated by your efforts not to mix up a kind message such as “May you be blessed with a long and happy life” with “Me you be blasted with a tong and hippy lift.”

Maybe the younger set (as my grandmother would’ve called them) has the right idea in modifying language by reducing words to the minimum of spelling and meaning. U shd all b playas in short convos w/ yr bff’s & bf’s and evry1 else, as long as u dont gross ppl out, amirite?

Speaking of boomers and changing patterns of communication, man-about-town Frank Brunelle e-mailed me some thoughts he was having about the economy and the way things are going. One particular comment caught my eye: “As I do more research in every area in attempting to predict what life will be like in the year 2030, I am struck by the fact that I am writing not on a sheet of paper or typing information into a computer, but rather, I am scribing my words on what seems to be the shifting sands of the Sahara Desert where at any moment a wind can not only obscure my words but bury me along with them. The knowledge that we thought we had yesterday often turns out to be not the knowledge of today and is without fail always worse than what we hoped it would be.”

Whew! That’s some heavy thinking, Frank, and brilliantly phrased.

The O.B. school fall book fair runs now through Nov. 6, and their next big event, the play Aladdin, is Nov. 13, 14 and 15.

Things are progressing at the YMCA. To check it out, visit ymcamv.org.

The 24th Women’s Symposium at the Chilmark Community Center is Saturday, Nov. 7, 9 a.m. to noon; all Island females are welcome to attend. Yes, this is sexist, but any guy in a skirt, lipstick and heels can probably get in. It’s unlikely this has ever happened; Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot has never been much of a role model for Vineyard men.