About a month ago I sent my grandson Shane a letter.  He goes to early college and I hadn't had a chance to say goodbye, so I wrote a letter, stuck in a few bucks, and sent it off.  A few weeks later I asked his father if he had gotten the letter, I wasn't sure if he still had that post office box number.   Paul said he would ask him and I forgot about it.

Then last week, talking to Paul on the phone he said that Shane brought home the letter for his father to read it to him.  I said is my handwriting that bad? and Paul said "no, he can't read script."  Now this blew my mind.  A kid in college that can't read script.  I talked to Sabra about it, and she told me they don't teach script in school anymore.  No penmanship, no three lined paper, with each letter just the right height, nobody is learning to write or read script anymore.  Just not taught in grade school at all.

I can just picture a class going to a museum and staring at the Declaration of Independence. I had a teacher once who would call sloppy writing "chicken scratches" "How do you expect me to read and grade you with all these chicken scratches?"  So these kids are staring at the 200 year old precious document and not being able to read a word of it - nor recognize the John Hancock signature.  All chicken scratches.  Am I nuts or is this crazy?

Back from my third trip to Wellfleet this year.  Stayed at the brick house condo - Beach Rose, across the street from Mayo beach.  We hadn't stayed there since 2008.  The year before I was working on an apron for a Christmas present for Ria, the days of the week, with a Black Mammy baking a cake, hanging up clothes, going shopping, going to church, it covered all seven days.  There was a Black woman staying in one of the nearby cottages,  beautiful woman that sang opera all the time.  Anyway I was so careful not to let her see what I was working on - didn't want to offend her.  Ria loved that apron and wore it on Christmas Day.

But this year there was something new, solar panels and a constant noise.  The first day we searched for the sound, the noise like a motor running, or a pump, or a hot water heater.  Timmy kept saying he couldn't hear it, but the next morning he said it had kept him awake all the night.  That is when I spotted the solar panels on the roof and we figured it out.  That was the source of our noise.  So that was different.  And at the Oysterfestival there were drones photographing the event.  That was different.  Every time one was spotted the audience turned away from the stage, lifting phones, taking pictures, waving to the little plane darting over our heads.  One man said, "Oh, God, I hope my wife doesn't see me - she thinks I'm in the office."

On the Cape, as at home, we were listening to P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster every night.  If you haven't read or heard these stories, you really have to - they make you laugh right out loud.  Anyway, I was working on my latest pillow on the beach, warm sun, bay as calm as a pond - my favorite thing to do, embroidery at the beach, drinking a beer.  A couple walked by and the man said, in a perfect English Wooster accent, "nice spot to do your stitchery".   Made me smile.  Stitchery. I think that must be what heaven is like, a warm sun, the sound of waves, a cold beer and some stitchery. 

A few weeks ago the reading at church was from "the book of wisdom" which I thought was amusing.  I mean who would want to hear from "the book of stupidity", or "the book of foolishness".  But then on the ride home I passed a house with a sign in the front lawn "Repeal the Safe Act".  What do they want?  "The Unsafe Act". "The dangerous Act", the "Kill the People Act"?

Last Friday Sabra went to Central Park to wait with thousands of people to see the Pope ride by.  Security was high, the fear in the back of everyone's minds was "Don't let some crazy person shoot the Pope".  And no one did.  No one even tried, as far as we know.  But you would have to wonder, if they had, would that make a difference in this country?  Killing movie goers didn't, killing first graders didn't, killing church goers didn't.  Would a Pope make the difference?