I am a 53 year old physician, practicing Hematology/Oncology in Palo Alto, CA. My first pens were given to me by my Dad: a Parker 51 and a Sheaffer touchdown. For my Bar Mitzvah I got only a single pen, but it was a beautiful Parker 61. In High School in Berkeley, CA during the 1960es I used Osmiroid pens. I bought my first Mont Blanc around 1967, as a going to college present. When passing through Hong Kong in 1970 I bought another group of Mont Blancs at incredible prices.

After 1970 I moved to New York City, where I lived until 1989 (except for my internship year at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.) I finished college, went to medical school, and did my post-graduate training at Columbia in New York. I remember having fun going down to the lower East Side and looking for bargain pens. There was a sporting goods store (Habers?) that had a pen department, from which I purchased another couple of Mont Blancs. Many fond memories of Arthur Brown when they were in the big store that included art supplies. Also a store that was on 57th or 58th street near 5th Avenue, that had an elderly African-American man who was described as "The Pen Doctor", and who did nice work with nibs. I remember going to the Parker Service Center in Rockefeller Center to exchange a nib for my Parker 51!

In the mid 1980's my wife and I moved to the East Side, since she was doing a post-doc at Rockefeller University. One day I happened to walk past Joon‚s, and met Mr. Joon, from whom I bought many pens. My wife bought me an engagement present at Arthur Brown. In 1989 we moved to Indianapolis, where we both worked at Indiana University. While in Indiana I had the delight of discovering the Columbus and the Chicago Pen Shows. Also discovered Avalon Pen in Zionsville, where I have many fun talks with Terry. Terry introduced me to the Hoosier Pen Club.

In the early 1990's I was thrilled do discover other crazy people who loved pens, on the CompuServe Pen Discussion Group, and the AOL Pen Forum. I don't think there has ever been a better on-line meeting place than those old original groups.

By the late 1990's I was getting tired of running a research lab, and decided that I had more fun taking care of live patients, so we moved back to California, where I am in full-time practice. I have been delighted to discover other crazy pen fanatics in the SF Bay area, and for the last two years I have been the President of the Pan-Pacific Pen Club (you should see the mansion and the limousine that comes with the job!) Most of my collection are modern pens, but I have a good representation of vintage also. Going to Pen Shows is an absolute delight, and recently I have figured out how to look for medical meetings being held in cities on the same weekend as a Pen Show.