I’ve never shared this with my dad, but I thought the timing seemed appropriate since he recently launched his Facebook page: The Pensmiths.
When I was a kid, somewhere around the 6th grade, I noticed something about my dad that was different from most other people: his handwriting. I’m not even sure what made me notice, other than the fact that it was exceptional. But I remember thinking that I wanted to learn to write just like him.
My father did a lot of things really well. Not only was he the smartest person I knew, but he had a mean fastball; could rebuild a carburetor blind-folded; and shoot his limit of dove faster than anybody in town (with one arm tied behind his back). More than most boys growing up in small-town Oklahoma, it seems I had dozens of reasons to look up to my dad. And even though I attempted to emulate him in each of those things at some point in my childhood, for some peculiar reason it was his handwriting that piqued my curiosity at the age of 12.
