Handwriting

For her chance to walk down the red carpet at Sunday night's Academy Awards, best actress Oscar winner Charlize Theron had to first drive down a dirt road in rural Michigan, out past Flint to where the blacktop narrows and the broken-down towns shrink. Theron had to go see Dawn Botkins, the woman who knew serial killer Aileen Wuornos best. Botkins owns everything Wuornos left in this world: boxes of court documents. The jailhouse flip-flops she wore to her execution. The sneakers she signed because they might be worth something one day. Her ashes.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Winnie Mandela found herself at the center of another storm yesterday, this time with the appearance of a letter in which she allegedly incriminates herself in the misuse of African National Congress funds.The lengthy letter, purportedly written by Mrs. Mandela and published in Sunday newspapers nationwide, confirmed a love affair with a young lawyer and blamed the affair for the breakup of her marriage with ANC leader Nelson Mandela.Most damaging of all, the letter seemed to confirm that Mrs. Mandela took thousands of dollars illegally from the ANC and squandered it with her purported lover, Dali Mpofu, 30. The letter is sure to further damage Mrs. Mandela's reputation and weaken her chances of a political comeback.

T he Load of Fun graffiti alley isn't visible from the intersection of North Avenue and Howard Street, which is gray and beige and blighted and grim. Nearby is a nondescript motel and a check-cashing service with a barred entrance. But when visitors walk north on Howard Street and turn onto the quirkily named 19 1/2 Street, suddenly, there the alley is. People abruptly stop walking and even lean back slightly. They draw in their chins and swallow their breaths. It's almost like stepping into an ancient walled European city or an outdoor urban cathedral.

Stuck at home one snowy afternoon a few weeks ago, Talia Sheridan, a Mount Washington homemaker, found herself leafing through some old notebooks kept by her son, Chris, when he was in elementary school. Delighted by Chris' carefully formed letters, Sheridan recalled, "he had a teacher then who thought penmanship was terribly important. She was even fussy about where he put the tail on an a." Making such memories slightly bittersweet, however, was a realization that her son's letters were no longer given such careful attention.

Darius Riley displays the concentration of a tightrope walker as he fastens his eyes on the lined paper in front of him and grips his No. 2 yellow pencil down to its point to make his most perfect curly letters. "I would rather do it in print because it is faster," Darius, a fifth-grader at Highlandtown Elementary School near Patterson Park, said of his cursive writing. Even his typing would probably be quicker, he says. Darius may be in the last generation of students to be taught cursive as states begin dropping the subject in favor of spending time on mastering math, science and other skills.

Lawyers for Scotland E. Williams pointed yesterday at Williams' brother and a man convicted in a Baltimore murder as men who might have killed two Washington lawyers in their weekend home overlooking the Severn River.Too many unanswered questions exist to eliminate other possible suspects in the execution-style killing of Jose Trias, 49, and Julie N. Gilbert, 48, found dead in their bed May 16, 1994, the lawyers said. They pointed to a boot print on the house siding and other items in the house that never were identified.

Christopher and Jonathan Cook are too young to remember the glory days of local liquor, when the unmistakable perfume of Maryland rye wafted over parts of Baltimore, when the sturdy spirit enjoyed status as the real man's drink of the Chesapeake. Even so, the brothers, who grew up on the Eastern Shore, are the best hope of reviving Maryland's lost tradition. The Cooks are poised to become the state's first distillers in nearly 40 years, as they blend and bottle a recipe for a premium wheat vodka they're calling Sloop Betty.

An FBI handwriting expert told jurors in the Scotland Williams double-killing trial yesterday that he didn't know who wrote the "on vacation" note left on the door of the victims' home.Surrounded by blowups of the defendant's handwriting and the note, Gary Kanaskie testified in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court that there are notable similarities between Williams' handwriting and the short note.But the writer traced over the letters repeatedly, making an accurate judgment impossible, he said.

COLLEGE PARK -- The last thing Maryland coach Gary Williams wrote on the dry erase board before his team jogged onto the court at Comcast Center yesterday afternoon was: Play our game. "I guess I need to improve my handwriting," he said after the Terps' sloppy 94-75 win over Siena. Iona@Maryland Thursday, 8 p.m, Comcast SportsNet, 1300 AM, 105.7 FM

Despite the fact doctors and lawyers and a few other professionals have a disdain for cursive (decent) handwriting, it is still an essential tool to properly identify a signature especially on documents ("Crossing out cursive?" Nov. 27). Cursive avoidance is not new or recent experience - ask grandparents who receive a "thank you" from grandchildren for gifts that are always printed. Some now even emulate the harsh scribble of the professionals. Richard L. Lelonek, Baltimore