Nell Minow

This calendar and pen set belonged to my grandfather. It stood on his desk, where he used the pen to write down totals of long columns of numbers (added in his head), scores of gin games he usually won (unless playing with grandchildren) and entries in checkbook ledgers (balanced to the penny).

I’m the only one in the family who still uses fountain pens, so when he died, my grandmother gave it to me, and I used it at my office for a few years until it stopped working, then brought it home.

At the international pen show that is held every August near us, there was a specialist in antique pen repair who knew just what the problem was and told me the history of this model as he worked. It’s called a snorkel pen, and its tricky filling system was the most sophisticated ever developed for a fountain pen, more efficient and less messy. It was a big innovation in the mid-50s, and the ads featured celebrities like Jackie Gleason and “Li’l Abner’s” Al Capp. But what we now call disruptive technology was about to eclipse fountain pens entirely: ballpoint pens, followed by felt-tips, rollerballs, and now even a digital stylus with no ink at all.

I use this pen to do the crossword puzzles in the newspaper, enjoying the feel of the gold nib laying ink on the paper as the letters make words, using the snorkel to add more ink as I think of what I have written since the last refill. And I remember what the man told me at the pen show. “Didn’t this come with a lifetime guarantee?” I asked him with a smile as he finished the repair. “Yes, that was for your grandfather’s lifetime,” he smiled back as he handed it to me, good as new. “And now yours.”