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view Par Avion BY NICKY PESSAROFF In one of my first memories, I am four years old sitting at the kitchen table with my mother, reading an airmail letter from Aunt Vickie. She wasn’t my real aunt; she was the rabbi’s wife at my cantor-father’s synagogue. Aunt Vickie and Uncle Rabbi (as my sister and I called him) were a generation older than my parents and played the role of our adoptive grandparents. They spent each summer in Israel, and Aunt Vickie regularly wrote me letters. I remember the thin paper marked “Par Avion,” so different from the rough construction paper that is ubiquitous to childhood. But more than anything, I remember her unique messages. They were written for a child, full of illustrations and easyto-follow language. A typical first sentence might have said: “We got on an El Al airplane and headed to Israel!” But Aunt Vickie added flair: “El Al” written in both English and Hebrew, and next to the word “airplane,” a simple illustrative drawing. My mother read the letters aloud to me, underscoring the words with her fingers. In my brain, the synapses formed: “A-I-R-P-L-A-N-E” makes the sound that connotes “airplane.” I credit my early reading proficiency to two things: my mother carefully underscoring the words she read me, and those wonderful letters from my Aunt Vickie—the paper and the process. I saw the same technique work on my step-son. When he was only weeks old, my wife would read book after book to him, always following the words with her finger. When I met them both, my now-son was turning five years old, and he could read every billboard in town. By the time he was eight, he was reading at a college level. Now, I’m not one of those people who believes that technology is ruining our children. If I had the money, I would have purchased a car with those screens set into the bucket seats. I’m sure my parents would have done the same if the technology existed when I was a kid in the 1980s. Still, I was lucky. I learned to lose myself in books, to annotate my thoughts in the margins, to highlight passages I wished to revisit. When I was grounded (a rare occurrence, of course), I had no problems losing myself in Judy Bloom books. These days, I still read every morning—not PDFs, but actual, printed books. Then I get to work, my writer’s brain already buzzing from the synapses that (I hope) are still forming. Today, specialists are learning that the process of reading on paper and writing notes by hand helps our memory retention in marked ways. Duh. Aunt Vickie didn’t need a study to know how to teach me to read. My mother didn’t need “Hooked on Phonics” to understand the import of reinforcing the written material with the sound it makes. My wife didn’t need Montessori to tell her that reading aloud together makes for abler students. The letters Aunt Vickie wrote me are long gone, and Aunt Vickie herself passed away more than two decades ago from an unexpected heart attack, but I still remember her clearly. And what I remember the most about her—beyond her delicious cooking, her lovely voice, her fierce hugs—are those wonderful letters, sent to me from across the Atlantic Ocean, filled with love, more instructional than school. An email just can’t do that. editor@penworld.com Find it first at Fahrney’s! The ultimate in pocket-sized ball pens, the Porsche Design 2019 Shake <strong>Pen</strong> of the Year features a custom holder in the shape of a Porsche 911 sports car in glossy stainless steel. Famous for its innovative ‘shake’ technology, the pen is ready to write with a flick of the wrist. NEW! Porsche 2019 Shake <strong>Pen</strong> of the Year Limited, numbered edition of 911 pieces worldwide To Order Call: 1-800-624-PENS • Shop Online: www.Fahrneys<strong>Pen</strong>s.com Visit our Retail Store: 1317 F St. NW, Washington, DC 202-628-9525
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