My father’s father was a pressman and the head pressman when he was in Knoxville, Tennessee. This is back in the lead type times, when the type had to be set before printing the newspapers. Before they moved to Knoxville, they lived in Connecticut. My father said that my grandfather helped develop the four color process for the comics. My father would get the new comic books, Superman, straight off of my grandfather’s press. Too bad those were thrown out!

I started cursive in school in about fourth grade and I did not like it. I learned, but I thought it was ugly. My father knew how to write in italics. I liked italics much more and asked him to teach me. I adapted the capital letters to make them easier and then I wrote my papers in italics when we were not allowed to print. The teachers objected but I pointed out that we weren’t allowed to print in the papers, but it did not say, “No italics.” I imagine that some teachers found me difficult.

My cursive is still stuck in about fifth grade and I almost never use it.

Meanwhile fast forward. A law is passed in Washington State that prescriptions cannot be written in cursive. However, it does not say that we have to print. The same loophole. I usually printed prescriptions anyhow, so that the pharmacist could read it. I got compliments occasionally for printing in a legible way. I didn’t spell certain medicines correctly, but the pharmacists never seemed to care about that. Now it is all by fax and since Covid started, even the controlled substances go by fax.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: print.