Pen lover

Almost identical to the pen I bought in a WOCCU silent auction. My plume is deep green.

I learned to print in first grade in Reading MA. Half way thru the year, I transferred to a private school in Bluefield WV. There I was expected to write cursive without mistakes on ink drops. Infractions brought a sharp hit on the wrist with all too-ready ruler.

Back in Reading for third grade I was forced to regress to printing with letters spread over two light blue lines on yellow paper. Fourth grade brought cursive writing again and fifth grade a variation on what we learned the year before.

It is little wonder that my handwriting is so bad that when I lived in Germany my father returned a letter asking me what I'd written. I couldn't read it.

Yet, I adore pens. They are one of the few things I'm willing to collect. Oh yes, there is the one felt-tip in a lovely lavender for everyday use such as grocery list. I don't own any ball points nor do I want to, but I'll crack for a beautiful pen.

I've a set of calligraphy wooden pens with different nibs, a glass pen and the pen given to us by the Corsier Village. We used it to sign our wedding documents.

I write almost everything by computer at a speed -- and readability -- impossible to achieve with a pen. But somethings will always be pen written such as thank you notes where I will take time to draw each letter.

I will use a pen along with a special notebook when I meet with a friend in a café to do free writes. Writing slows down but the emotional surge of seeing letters, words, sentences, paragraphs form on the page is different than using the computer.

I'll transfer any of these stories to the computer. Handwriting doesn't allow for cut and paste, name changes and all the other edits that improve the quality of the content of the writing, but a computer will never have the same sensuality of a pen, a beautiful pen, a pen that carries memories of how it was acquired.