Disconnecting from modern technology...

Modern technological advancement has ripped an extremely important page from the giant chapters of American history; Skype, Face Book, Twitter and Smart Phone texting have replaced handwritten letters from immediate family to our U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.



Nearly gone are the almost unseen thumb prints and ink stains, pencil scratches and eraser burns, unexpected cologne or dust particles, the truth about fear and the constant dares to be endlessly strong during storms of constant change.



Having face to face time or instant access via the web has begun a process of adding layers to a side of America only PBS, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg have been honorable enough to borrow from closely knit relations willing to open the realms of reality to the rest of the world.



Not decades but centuries of letters written home have added depth to cold war torn nightmares combined with oversaturated political propaganda. Although emails easily serve as documented proof of a soldier’s travels inward and out…part of our history rests in the curves and straight lines of a grown man and woman’s style of hand writing.



I grasp the emotion of locking eyes with a heart only your soul knows on the cold face of a computer screen; technology has caused the distance that makes a heart grow fonder to become a mile marker not a history maker. The intimacy of truth shared by two wandering wishes is what added romance to black and white movies.



I always pictured my Grandfather jotting down personalized views of an uncivil Germany on a hot butter thin hard to locate sheet of paper then shoved quickly into a much too small envelope before being shipped back to the states for Hattie Mae to read, “My Dearest Bride, a short note to hold, to nestle up to when you are alone, to touch when loves made you cold, to bend and shape when life doesn’t feel like its going your way. I’m sure you have questions pertaining to this place of war…not tonight my music maker, let this slow dance belong to our next time, not the fear of losing our final touch by the careless behavior of warlords and leaders who find no faith in the hand I continue to hold even though you are much too many miles away.”



Handwritten letters can be compared to the slow moving stream that once played like children in the winding larger than Canada backyard; with time ink fades, as do the memories rolled up in the collections of skin under our aging eyes. With so many investing what little work pay is left in plastic surgery lost are the reasons why getting old seemed so damn important to our grandparents and those before them.



Each morning at sunrise I daily write with a silver tipped nib which is carelessly crashed into the awaiting ink well of many blended colors; for reason other than I hear music the moment the gentle scratch of metal meeting paper takes a thought from within and gently lays out a path for a passerby.



The owner of an art studio at the Epi Center in downtown Charlotte refused to believe my stories of painting pictures with words…only to fall witness to his silence when slowly lifting my constantly busy fingerprints toward his assuming way…for no day passes that I’m not marked by the writing instrument chosen to rob from me what history is quietly losing.



Teach your fingers new tricks—the opposite hand was created to balance the paper so it doesn’t slide from beneath the pressures of print or cursive. The fatty part of your writing hand was created to protect the single bone that resembles a straight edge keeping your thoughts straight on paper with no lines.



Reading books is a brilliant thing to teach kids but what happens when becoming an adult teaches you to stop physically writing? Why as a child would I choose to wanna learn?



Be you but through something someone else can barely read…your handwriting.



I will always believe in you first…



arroecollins@clearchannel.com