Mont Blanc--the pen, not the mountain

my pen!

I have seen the actual Mont Blanc. In the spring of 1999 I was traveling around Europe (on a very sad budget), visiting sites that had been important to Mary Shelley (1797-1851), sites that, in some cases, she'd used for Frankenstein (1818).

I took a train up into the French Alps, heading to Chamonix, France, to see the Mer de Glace (sea of ice), the (once-) magnificent glacier which she had used for a key scene in Frankenstein, but the clouds were heavy that day (grrrr), and the little tourist train up to the glacier itself was not even running. So back to Geneva I went, but as we were rolling along, the clouds cleared, the sun flared, and I saw the glistening glory of Mount Blanc.

But I'm not talking about the mountain then--but about a fountain pen (get the rhyme!).

BTW: This morning, thinking about this post, I wondered why it's called a "fountain" pen. I looked it up. DUH: Because it contains within it a kind of mini-fountain (of ink).

Some thirty years ago I attended a family reunion out in Oregon (where my dad was born--where scores of Dyers still live). On the way home, waiting for my flight in the Portland airport, I was using a mechanical pencil to take notes on a book I was reading. I ran out of lead.

But I remembered I'd seen a stationery shop in the airport, so off I went to get my $1.29 supply of lead.

And while I was in line, near the register, I saw a display of Mont Blanc fountain pens. The credit card nearly flew out of my back pocket like a ravenous bird and presented itself to the cashier, who rang up the sale: $1.29 for lead, $275 for the pen. (Impulse shopping at its acme.)

I've been using it ever since. But not for everything. Principally, I use it for two things: (1) handwritten notes and cards which I mail to folks, (2) notes on the book I'm reviewing that week for Kirkus. And that's all. The rest of the time it remains clipped to my datebook (yes, I still use one of those instead of the calendar on my iPhone). But when we're traveling somewhere, I leave it behind. Don't want to tempt Fate. So, for example, for those many summers Joyce and I spent a week in Stratford, Ontario (for the theater festival), I always left it behind, took my notes with a regular old ballpoint.

I lost the pen twice (I thought): (1) I'd stopped in the local telephone office (pre-cell days), left it there by accident--returned a couple of hours later--found it where I'd left it; (2) I left it once at Caribou Coffee here in Hudson about a dozen years ago--returned a couple of hours later--found it where I'd left it. Since then, I've been more ... careful.

I've had to ship it off a couple of times for modest repairs, but, for the most part, it has served me well--more than well. I just like the feel of it--the look. And it reminds me of, oh, nearly 70 years ago when, at Adams Elementary School in Enid, Okla., we had a penmanship period every day (with workbooks published by the Zaner-Bloser Co.--still in business, I see on the web), and we learned how to write with a pen we had to dip in little bottles of Shaeffer's Skrip ink that we were required to buy. (Would you say that times have changed?)

Anyway, I love that pen, and I may have to leave instructions in my will to have it buried with me. You never know, lying underground, when you just might get the best idea you've ever had.