Reading handwriting

This afternoon I had to prepare and send off my taxes -- an annoying task for anyone but the most twisted CPA -- and I signed my name to the return with a flourish, although not with as much panache as John Hancock (would that I had Hancock's money...).  I looked at my signature and thought for a moment about signatures and all they entail.

My own signature is misleading.  I was raised Catholic and attended Catholic grade schools, so I received strict instruction in the Palmer method.  It would be a far juicier story were I to have had my hands whacked with a ruler when I was practicing my penmanship, but the truth of the matter is that I admired our Mother's graceful hand so much I tried to emulate her as best I could.  Despite the fact that when I reached adulthood I towered over her and outweighed her by probably one a half times, my handwriting's belies my masculinity.  It is so deceptive that one time in college, I forgot to put my name on an assignment in a philosophy class.  The professor, complete with rabbinical beard, passed out the graded assignments and said quietly If you didn't receive your paper check with me after class because one was turned in without a name on it.  It looks to be a woman's handwriting as best I can tell.  Since I hadn't received a graded paper but knew I'd turned one in, I approached the professor and told him I hadn't gotten a paper returned and asked if I could see the one he hadn't handed out.  When he showed me the one he had I noticed immediately my handwriting and told him it was mine.  He apologized to me nervously and told me he didn't mean anything by his comment.  I told him not to worry and chuckled to myself as I walked away with my paper.

I've always noticed how people hold their pens when they write.  I was taught to hold the pen between my thumb and my forefinger, resting the pen on my middle finger.  Despite this, I notice people holding the pen with their middle finger and resting it on their thumbs, holding it with both their forefinger and middle fingers and resting on their thumbs and lefthanders holding the pen above the line they are writing.

It's always mystified me how handwriting analysts can tell a personality simply by the person's writing they're examining.  My handwriting differs depending on whether I'm writing on a level surface, whether I'm standing, whether I'm writing on a softcover book while standing, or any variation thereof.  Where there's a loop in my L's sometimes there isn't other times.  My initial B's are hit or miss, my R's are sometimes brilliant and sometimes horrific.  One day I could seem to be the most erudite man in the world and the next day I might seem to be an axe murderer.

How women of a certain age write fascinates me.  The way their O's were rounded, almost like caricatures unto themselves, almost indicates their age, because schoolgirls all wrote the same way during a certain period.  Then there are doctors who, by and large, are renowned for their sloppy penmanship.  I also had trouble with someone who's handwriting was so indecipherable one would have thought he was a doctor.  He wasn't; he was just an avid devotee of teen pornography.

Historians often have to review ancient writings and how they are able to make sense of some of it amazes me.  Then again, they could be making it all up and I'd never know the difference.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles