Is the keyboard mightier than the Pen? Not in my book!

Many years from now, someone is going to open a time capsule, reach in, pull out a pen, twirl it around and ask, “What was this?”

I’m serious. Look what happened to the paper map. Who would’ve predicted its demise? I love paper maps. I know how to fold one, too. It’s a talent I’m proud of. Wait until the time capsule recipients get a load of the “paper map.” I’d love to see them try to fold that thing back up.

With all the social media, texting and e-mailing, the pen-using population is dwindling. There’s electronic banking, signatures, documents, even greeting cards. What’s going to happen to our finger pads and fingerprints? They’re going to wear away, that’s what.

Writing with a pen makes your brain slow down and work harder. It’s a connection thing. And I’m sure everyone has heard that writing information down makes it stick in your head; It’s like a sticky note.

I don’t want to wake up one day and read the headline, “PEN AND INK BECOME EXTINCT!” That would truly stink. Pen and ink go way back, at least to 2500 BC. I don’t want to be responsible for the extinction of something that old. The pen has come so far, from burnt bones, to straw reeds, to animal feathers and beyond. It’s an amazing invention.

Quentin Tarantino uses pen and ink. He pens his screenplays with felt pens and notebooks. I guess that would make his hit “Pulp Fiction” truly pulp fiction. Tom Wolfe, Amy Tan and Joyce Carol Oates also write longhand. And it’s said that Truman Capote wrote his first and second drafts longhand. Whoa! That’s a lot of longhand.

My grandfather wrote longhand. I have a statue of St. Anthony that he brought over from Italy in the late 1800s. My grandfather scrawled his name on the underside, the best he could, with pen and ink and it’s still there. I love gazing at his autograph. Somehow it brings him close. You can’t get that with an electronic signature.

So, pick up a pen more than every now and then, hold it between your fingers and write something. Write a letter, a journal entry, a novel, a play, a love note, a poem, a song, a grocery list, a to-do list. Wait. Forget the to-do list – unless it’s for someone else.

This story was originally published March 9, 2017 at 5:15 PM with the headline "Is the keyboard mightier than the Pen? Not in my book!."