(The next in the Autumn 2024 series of excerpts from my illustrated memoir, “Double Take”)

April 25, 2015 – journal entry about pens and my pen history

Back before the invention of markers, gel pens, roller-ball pens, and ballpoint pens, if you wanted to write in ink, you learned to handle a very spillable bottle of permanent ink. Before World War II, pens were not throwaway items, they were well-cared-for, reusable tools. Hard to imagine, I know.

One of the finest inventions in this inky history was the fountain pen (see fascinating history here.) I bought my very first fountain pen in the late-1960s, a Sheafer Skrip (silver cap with a very hip avocado green barrel.) The significant selling point for this pen was its revolutionary cartridge system – using cartridges that were prefilled with various colors of ink – no more carrying around bottles of ink, risking imminent disaster whenever you dropped your bookbag. To this day, this lightweight pen feels natural in my hand.

I have purchased a few fountain pens in the time I have been sketching, thanks to the encouragement of many in the world of Urban Sketchers, and I find refilling a fountain pen from a bottle of ink to be a precise ritual not unlike a Japanese tea ceremony.

Earlier today, much to my surprise, I succeeded at resurrecting my dad’s Parker fountain pen, which he had used every day at work. After all these years, the rubber-bladder filler system of the pen should have been a crumbly mess, full of dried out ink from 1967, the year he died. But thanks to lots of water and patience, it found a new life this year, almost five decades later. I like the thickness of the line it makes. The balance and weight of the pen in my hand are oddly familiar and calming, like a DNA telegram from his hand to mine.

I think of Daddy holding this same pen in 1963, when he sat at his desk at home writing me those birthday checks (fancy promissory notes) for a party dress, or a trip to see Ice Capades in New York City. I still have those checks tucked away with my other ancient paper treasures. I realize now that he used this very pen to write them.

I was still in full-blown, hero-worship-of-Daddy mode when he died unexpectedly, just two weeks before my birthday. It’s such a gift now to reconnect with him, through a fountain pen I thought had also died but has now found a new life and renewed purpose.

May 2, 2015 – sketchbook notes a week later

I knew this pen was fun for writing, but wow, what this pen does for my sketching is amazing. The line quality is so expressive, I can vary the line thickness easily by having a lighter touch. With fountain pens, you barely press down anyway. With a featherweight touch, the line work becomes enchanting, feels even lyrical as it flows along effortlessly.

I wonder what Dad would think, seeing me sketching and writing with the same fountain pen he used to write letters and sign contracts at the Reader’s Digest so many years ago. I like to think he and I would be friends now, laughing together about how we each used to be so driven on the outside, while still so insecure on the inside, so in need of an unconditional “hurrah” in our lives.

If he were alive today, we could shower each other with kudos — and maybe through this pen, we are.

(to be continued…)

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 As always, thanks for spending some time with me “aloft.” Happy sketching!