Fountain of ink

     My mother was the ambassador of the fountain pen.  Long after the ball point had become the new standard, she was still using her trusty Esterbrook.  We had all been taught to use the fountain pen in elementary school.  Each of us had a bottle of Scrips permanent blue-black in our desk to refill when our pens went dry.  To do this, we immersed the point into the bottle and pulled a lever on the side of the pen, expelling whatever ink remained, then as we slowly returned the lever to its original position, a rubber bladder inside the barrel sucked up a new supply of ink. A quick blot with a tissue, and we were ready to go again.
      Once, in fifth grade, I was giving a talk and my classmates were duly taking notes with their fountain pens.  One of the boys in the front row was having trouble with his pen.  He thought he might be out of ink, so he pulled the lever to check.  A spurt of ink flew forth, landing squarely on the front of my white blouse.
      Fountain pens were especially dangerous for left-handed writers.  The ink went onto the paper wet, and if the following hand dragged across the new line of writing, it would smear.  Lefties soon learned to write from below or hook their hands down from the top, resting on ink that had already dried.  The fountain pen had another bugaboo, too.  The ink came down a channel between two sharp points, and if the points dug fibers from the paper, the ink flowed freely and made a puddle.  Each of us had a blotting paper to soak up this puddle as quickly as it was noticed.  Teachers hated blots, and if the work was to be turned in for a grade, it had to be redone.
      I, too, loved my Esterbrook.  The manufacturer made a series of interchangeable points, some especially for left-handed people.  If your point became too dull to write, you could purchase another.  I have no idea how many new points my mother purchased.  She was a prolific correspondent.  Not only did she write to her far-flung children almost every week, she wrote to her college friends, her congressman, her godson, her former students, and, at Christmas wrote hundreds of letters, all by hand.  Her favorite ink was peacock blue.  She always had some on hand.  When Scrips was going to discontinue that color, her local supplier informed her and she bought a whole case.  Even so, she outlived it.