I've loved fountain pens since I bought my first Esterbrook when I was a fifth grader. I'm old enough (63) to remember dip pens and inkwells in school desks (third and fourth grades). I think what pen and ink represented to me was the forlorn hope that someday, somehow my awkward lefthanded scrawl might become presentable at last. I pursued that chimera with several Esterbrooks throughout high school and college, then with a Sheaffer Snorkel I'd received as a high school graduation present.
After college I did a masters and doctorate in Chinese history. I acquired and prized low-end Montblancs and a Pilot while studying and traveling in Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong. (In those days the People's Republic of China was even more inaccessible than the dark side of the moon). I then taught Chinese history at a liberal arts college for seventeen very happy years. They were also years in which Sheaffer cartridge fountain pens adorned the linings of every one of my tweed jackets with large, gaudy blue and red ink stains.
At forty-four having spent every single year of my life since the age of five in school, I went off to theological seminary. (Actually, I'd been pondering doing so for the previous twenty-five years). I was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1985. I resigned my tenured professorship and for the past fourteen years have been rector of a suburban Connecticut parish. Our town is about an hour and a half from New York (and FPH and Joon). If I were any closer to those emporia, I might have to ask you to visit me in debtors' prison!
My wife and I met and married thirty years ago when we were faculty colleagues. Our two daughters are in their twenties, and both are preparing for careers in social work. I'm a compulsive reader, mainly history and nineteenth century novels. I love travel, photography, and classical music. Of the latter I am, alas, a consumer only, not even an occasional producer.
My current bout of stylophila began when my last Montblanc gave up the ghost a few years ago. A young clerk at Bob Slate's in Cambridge, MA sold me a Waterman Preface (ultra dependable if unexciting) telling me that it was a better pen and a considerably lower price than the bottom of the line Montblanc they had in stock. He was right. I went on from there with Cross, Sheaffer, Caran d'Ache, Pelikan, Stipula, Namiki, Omas....All of you on this board (and IkonPen) have stoked my curiosity and acquisitive fever to perilous levels by your constant incitement. I also think you're a hoot! Thanks!
|