They introduced them to us in 5th grade. They were fountain pens – with real ink, with pointed tips and some sort of lever that sucked the ink up into the pen. We were supposed to learn to write with them in long hand and not smear our scribbles all over the paper. They might as well have asked me to walk across the high wire at a Ringling & Brothers Circus.
Every day, I came home with ink from my chin to my toes. Ink doesn’t taste good, by the way, and it didn’t come out easily in the wash. White and blue polka dot shirts were quite the thing in 5th grade.
We had those old timey school desks with a hole in the top for an ink well, and a little dug-out place at the top for the pen. Our moms took us to the store during the first week of class to select our weapons – ink pens, actually, but we used them as weapons. If your pen was full of ink, with a deft flick of the wrist you could send a spray of ink across two rows and splatter the guy who just did the same to you. Modern kids had Star Wars. We had Ink Wars.
A company called Schaeffer’s manufactured all the ink in the entire universe in the 50’s. Parker made most of the pens. Every day, we dipped our Parkers into the jars of Scheaffer’s ink and practiced our “Ls” and “Ts” and “Ss” in strict cursive. “Ss” were the hardest. And we flicked ink on our fellow students, and we sometimes got paddled for it.
Then something called a ball point pen was introduced and Scheaffer’s Ink Company took a huge hit. Too bad. I was just getting good at my “Ss.”
