The pen is mightier than the pencil...

The school year starts today for our students. Even if I didn't have a calendar I'd know it was time. For the past two weeks I've watched the kids. Every year they drift back into the schools, riding their bikes in the schoolyards, playing on the playground equipment. Of course, they trail their moms into the schools to register, too. They need to acclimate themselves for the first day back.

Employees can be patrons, too. I saw a lady who works in one of the schools. Last Monday I saw her registering her youngest child in elementary school. The next day I saw her registering her oldest, a high school student. The day after that she was registering her two junior high age kids. She is a one-woman population explosion in our school system.

Even before my time, back in the "olden days," as we used to call them, students went to school with fountain pens. Nowadays you take your kid to Wal-Mart or the dollar store and buy a 10-pack of Bic ballpoint pens for a buck or so, but in the days when these ads were run, in a 1946 Life Magazine, having the right writer was very important. Ball point pens had been invented by 1946, but weren't in general use. As my dad told me, they tended to blob a lot.

Click on the pics to see 'em full size.Fountain pens would blob, too, especially if you were trying to shake it to clear out the nib and hit the girl in front of you with a splatter of ink. Oops!

I imagine it was quite a big deal to get a new pen and pencil set before school started each fall. Now a kid expects a new laptop.Ciao for now.