Thank you notes

I received a"thank you" note in the mail the other day; a sweet old-fashioned gesture that I really appreciated.  It got me to thinking about how I write MY thank yous and send them via email.  I remember being in a "Creative writing" class in college and a woman submitted a "thank you " note she had written as her project for the week.  It was two sentences, something like  "Lunch was lovely and the company more so"  I didn't think that actually qualified for the piece she was supposed to submit and she dropped the class soon after.  I always wondered why she took the class to begin with.  She didn't seem to get that the focus was stories or poetry.  She seemed more focused on letter writing,  she might have thought it would hone that skill.  I seem to recall she was in real estate.  These days I do  email my "Thank you" notes more for speed than anything else, although I have been thinking of writing a letter to a friend and see if she writes one back.  I miss the days of waiting for the mail to come to see if there is a long newsy letter in the mail.  These days it's either junk or bills, seldom something you really want.  One thing I will say is that writing letters can be a pain.  I have TERRIBLE handwriting, so I print.  I like to say "I don't have bad handwriting, I have my own font"  Do they even TEACH what we used to call cursive in school these days?  I had heard they had stopped doing that and I hope not.  It's been a long time since my daughter was in grade school, but they taught it then.  I wonder if, like art and music, handwriting is considered to be non-essential.  We seem to be raising a nation of test-takers, not thinkers, but I think I have talked about that before.  I really think we are doing our children a disservice by not including art in their education.  It's all about math and science, not BAD things, but we need balance.  If scientists can't appreciate art, how can they consider the wonder in the universe?