We are, perhaps, the last generation to know the intimacy of lead pencil on paper. If you closed your eyes now, could you not recall it? The sound of dozens of scribbling tips pressed into pads of paper, before you got older and pencils were swapped out for pens laden with inks of red and blue. No doubt if you tried, you’d smell that distinct wood and metallic scent of pencil shavings wafting to your nose, just as you did when you were a child, those many years ago.
— Read more in Bottling Innocence: What Fragrance Takes You Back To Your Childhood? at Grazia.
Pencils on paper! Love it. Now I may need to search for Ormaie Papier Carbone …
🙂
My auntie taught me Palmer method cursive the summer before first grade. I had to really practice not clutching the pencil too tight, and not pressing down so hard I poked holes in the paper. WhenI got to first grade no one else knew how to write at all, the teacher accused me of showing off. I was so confused. My aunt taught the Special Ed kids for the school system in out small school district, so after all these years I realize it was my auntie showing off. There was no love lost between those two ladies! That woman, Mrs. McNiff, terrified me. One time when I got the order of K and L backwards when reciting the alphabet out loud, she came up to me, stuck her bony finger in my face and said, ”I am watching you, Missy. You are just like your father when I had him in this class, and I am watching you!” One of the perils of a small town- all the adults think they have you all figured out long before you yourself have a clue…sorry for the digression!
Wow, shame on that teacher for treating you like that.
Oh my!
Sorry to vent. I got moved to another class with Mrs. Shawnessy, who I immediately loved, and school was always my favorite thing after that!