Man... that hit a nerve. Found my granddad's old tackle box last year, full of handwritten labels on little wood drawers. Just his shaky print describing each fly... felt like I was holding his thoughts, not just his stuff. Can't get that from a scanned PDF, you know?
Totally get that... my grandma's cookbook with her notes in the margins feels the same way, like a little secret she left behind. The handwriting just makes it real.