We received a letter the other day. Handwritten and personally addressed, it’s full of news and gossip, and, yes, it came by snail mail.
Our letter was from an older relative. Just as receiving such items by mail is a rare occurrence, it highlights a once-common aspect of life that is slowly disappearing — fine penmanship.
Our relative used to have lovely handwriting, with sweeping ascenders, swooping descenders and curling spurs. She had been taught to write cursive at a time when primary school students spent hours each day copying and recopying lines of letters and text to train their hands to make graceful, gorgeous ink tracks across the page.
Few grade-school students now devote so many hours and days to learning to form consistently elegant lettering. Today, the emphasis shifts quickly to typing and coding.
Our relative’s handwriting has started to deteriorate, however. She’s in her 80s and she’s losing fine motor control in her hands. Her fingers no longer control the pen, and her writing is jagged, weak and shaky.
It’s the end of an era. As she and her peers gradually lose their penmanship, the skill is being relegated to the margins of everyday living, taken up only by artists and craftspeople.
Fine penmanship is only one of many once-everyday skills disappearing from common use.
Planning and cooking everyday meals from scratch is another. One food-industry expert says Canadians spend 15 minutes or less preparing most meals eaten at home. Marketing research backs this up. According to polling and social-research company Ipsos, Canadians are relying more and more on ready-made meals and meal kits to feed themselves and their families.
Meal kits provide pre-portioned food ingredients and recipes for people to prepare at home, and can be bought in grocery stores or ordered through subscription services for delivery to your door. In the past two months, trial discount offers for both FreshPrep’s and GoodFood’s kits have landed in my mailbox.
The success of local companies such as Epicure.com, Chef on the Run, Cheryl’s Gourmet Pantry and other outfits that offer quick, convenient home-meal solutions confirms our widespread struggle to balance our lack of time in the kitchen with our desire for a healthy home-eating experience.
Declining household kitchen craft includes canning and preserving — ironic given the variety of fruits and vegetables grown in the region. Victoria’s Circle Canning has stepped in to fill that widening void with its line of artisanal, local, farm-sourced canned goods.
But time and convenience aren’t the only issues. As those two factors squeeze meal planning, budgeting, shopping, preparation and cooking out of our schedules, the experience, knowledge and skill that comes with regularly undertaking those tasks begin to atrophy. This leaves us ever-more dependent on others to meet those needs. It also removes much of our control over what we eat.
The ability to sew and mend clothes is also disappearing — even simple tasks such as sewing on buttons, taking up a hem, or fixing a seam. Although we can pay people to do this work for us, we usually don’t. Instead, we toss or recycle the clothing and buy new.
And forget those other once-essential household needle-related chores — quilting, knitting, lacemaking, embroidery, rug hooking, among others. Those activities are now considered hobbies or artisan craftwork.
Basic home-maintenance skills are also becoming rare. For lack of a squirt of oil, application of a screwdriver and new o-rings and seals, door hinges squeak, drawer pulls wiggle, faucets drip and toilet tanks leak until we can get the handyman in.
The same goes for vehicle maintenance. Computer-integrated systems in today’s cars preclude at-home engine overhauls, but even with the less technical tasks — checking and changing oil, changing tires, topping up fluids, replacing burnt-out bulbs — fewer people are rolling up their sleeves.
And where would we now be without GPS and map apps? With the ability to read and navigate by paper map dying out, many of us would be wandering around, confused as to the best routes to take, missing important turns and ending up where we didn’t expect to be.
When people were posting handwritten letters 40 years ago, they would have had no idea all the handy adult skills they had picked up over the years would lead to where we are now — where those once-important skills are seen as curious social relics of a slower, simpler time.
