TOUCHING THE PEN

 

 In a note just now to my friend Monique in Canada---she of the delightful and sumptuous La Table de Nana, now closed down and sorely missed, I mentioned an old custom which I think of now and then.   Letters often used to begin: I take my Pen in Hand. . .   And a lot of people DID take that for true, especially some of our town residents who had the misfortune of having never learned to read or write.   And so,  I had a few patrons who counted on me to read their letters from family and friend, as well as to WRITE them.   As I took down their words,  quite a few of them would finish the little ritual by a hesitant touch of my pen.   It's as if the writings were some unspoken RITES---a sacred ritual to the words, in which touching the pen, though they could not write nor read what I was putting down---that conveyed some sort of power to the words, and made them theirs.    

Even folks who came in and could only write their X on a note or document---that power of touching my trusty Parker 51 Gold-All-Over---a graduation gift which has lasted me decades---those folks trusted in the POWER of the touch, and the proof of their being there in that moment to vouchsafe their word and their agreement.    And even Wills and Deeds were treated with the dignity of their "X" if I had written in their name, and BY: racheld.   The confidence in that touch was solid, legality was confirmed, and the courthouse understood.  

I think of those long-ago folks, the ones who never learned to read or write, whose education probably stopped in third grade when they had to Quit School and help with the farming or sawmilling or road-upkeep, and my heart weeps in retrospect for what they missed and I partook of so freely and unthinkingly.   I coached several would-be drivers through the little Mississippi Highway booklet and all its rules, and once I was allowed to go to a formal required test for a friend, reading him the questions from the page about parts of engines and carburetors and flywheels and such, so he could mark A-B-C-or-D on the long answer sheet for a mechanic's certification.   They knew I couldn't coach him and certainly wouldn't cheat.

   

And the TIME---the time that they did have free---when they could have been transported into that magical world of BOOKS or even hunting magazines or the Commercial Appeal--I grieve for the wasting and missing out on all those colorful, exciting, heart-touching tales and interesting news and facts which I could pick up and set down at any moment.   I'm sure their pride in their children and all the recipients of those letters was bittersweetly great, for their own loss. 

But those dear folks, those with the concrete confidence of stone for the Power of the Touch---I wonder if there are any who still convey their faith into that simple small ritual of Touching the Pen.