When I was but a young TRex, this was the time of year I dreaded the most. Summer had flown and school was about to begin. It wasn’t so much school I hated as other kids, really. Well, and being told what to do all the time. (I know you’d never guess it, but my relationship with authority has always been a little rocky.)
When I was a lad, and many of you will remember this yourselves, our summers were not rigorously structured into camps, workshops, off-season athletic practices, or French lessons. Summer came and our parents basically kicked us out of the house with our bicycles in the morning and reeled us in at dinner time, sunburned, bug-bitten, and exhausted.
I loved summer because it meant that I would have vast, uninterrupted spans of time to read. The public library was my favorite place in the world from June to August. Mom would drive us over there and turn us loose for an hour and then we’d head home with more books than we could possibly read in six months, let alone a week, and then the next week, we would repeat the process.
In between were hours and hours to read, write, dream, listen to music, and avoid the other little savages in my neighborhood as much as possible. My mom let us stay up late and sleep in if we wanted, and we basically would spend the summers as a family of happily engaged readers, meeting for meals and occasional trips to the pool or out of town to our grandparents’ place in North Carolina where there was a public library that I liked even better than the one at home.
But then came September, inevitably, just like it does every year. I would start fretting about it around the Fourth of July, actually. ("Summer’s halfway gone! Have I read enough? Have I done enough with this season of freedom before I must go back and face The Beast? I wonder if third grade will be any better than second…")
August would wend its way toward Labor Day and I knew that my halcyon days of independence were numbered. The terrific ordeal of shopping for school clothes was close at hand. I would have to put on shoes again and comb my hair and grind my teeth through the tedium of reviewing all the crap from last year ("HOW MANY TIMES are they going to tell us what a FREAKING NOUN is?!").
My father knew, however, that there was one sure way to bait the trap and get me and my brother to come along quietly.
School supplies.
I don’t know if it’s just a product of being raised by a pair of Ph.D.’s or what, but I love the school supplies aisle of any drug store or supermarket more than any other location in the store. I get all weak-kneed for new notebooks, blue ultra-fine-point Sharpies, freshly sharpened pencils (or better yet, fancy mechanical pencils), erasers, folders, stationery, and most importantly, fountain pens and bottles of ink.
Now, these days, you have to go out of your way to get a decent fountain pen. Sadly, they are falling out of use as anything more than pocket jewelry for wealthy men, and I think that’s a shame. Of course, a great number of them are ridiculously overpriced, but when you bear in mind that these are permanent tools that you will write with for years, they kind of take on an entirely different meaning than your average biro.
Okay, I confess. I am a fountain pen junkie. I have about fifty of them, all different kinds from street level student pens to a couple of luxury items, a bunch of antiques from the forties, fifties, and sixties, and some oddities that I have found at flea markets and estate sales.
The one at the top of this post is a MonteVerde Mauna Kea, named for a volcano in Hawaii. It was half-price and I had a $40 credit with the company I bought it from, so I basically spent ten dollars on it. It should be here tomorrow. Now I just need to track down a bottle of Pelikan blue-black ink and I will be ready for fall.
Even if I will not find myself sitting bored and sweaty in a classroom this week in new shoes that pinch and tuning out the sound of some teacher who is the poster child for ennui, there is still a sense of limitless possibility in a fresh white stack of paper, a new pen brimming with ink, and a head full of ideas. Here’s to fall! And school supplies!
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yowser!
Lovely!
TRex!
School starts Wednesday… can’t WAIT to see those sweet little faces!
OldCoastie @ 4
Aw, your students are lucky to have you, OC!
“I don’t know if it’s just a product of being raised by a pair of Ph.D.’s or what,”
or, as my son said when I came home with my PhD, “Now I live with a Paradox.”
it was a joke that had obviously been lying in wait, and it was a fine gift.
hey, I got the best gig in town… the kids just LOVE computer lab!
Good gravy, TRex, isn’t that Mauna Kea to die for? I saw it in Levenger and I am desperately restraining myself from buying it because I simply don’t write much any more because of my carpal tunnel. Have a number of fountain pens, too, think I loved them because I was once a draftsman. Only way I could make money and scribble with graphite and ink to my heart’s content.
Loved books, would spend my entire summer curled up on the beach or in an arm chair, book glued to my nose; remember reading The Good Earth and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in the same week, completely spent by the emotions in each. I must have been eight or nine years old, if memory serves. Best summers were those with the best books; I still laugh, thinking of my 14th summer and Portnoy’s Complaint, amazed at what young boy-men would do, both in text and in the flesh. Heh.
I LOVE school supplies. I always loved the smell of notebook paper fresh out of the wrapper. Probably some chemical that makes you high or something in large quantities but to me it smelled like infinite possibility.
This is for Eureka Springs, AR
Here’s the link for the post and comment I was refering to is number #81.
http://www.firedoglake.com/200…../#comments
I would really like to know what Christy or anyone else here thinks about this. I ask Christy because she’s a very smart lawyer and lady.
Got to hit the sack now as 4:30am comes quickly and another day of work to look forward to.
Goodnight all.
p.s. Time to hit the hay. First day of school here tomorrow, must be ready to crack the whip and get the Mom-mobile on the road in the morning.
Happy first day of school to the rest of you parents and students!
Jane Hamsher @ 9
hmm… I always liked the smell of fresh DITTOS… poor kids don’t have that joy anymore!
TRex, you talk as though you come from Virginia, where the schools don’t reopen until the day after Labor Day because of the King’s Dominion Law. Many school districts in other states commenced a week or two ago.
Unlike a number of people I know, I love having my teenaged daughter at home during the summer. We sleep a little later and have a totally relaxed schedule. I work at home so she and I take off sometimes to go to DC to visit the museums, or go shopping or go out to lunch.
She’s a wonderful friend and companion and I’m always a little sad to send her back to school each fall.
“fancy mechanical pencils”
(swoon)
Hello, my name is Peterr, and I’m a school supply addict . . .
pol – I’m in CA and we don’t start until Wednesday… kinda depends on the district… also, many of our classrooms are not air conditioned and it is still Very Hot here… it would qualify as cruel and unusual punishment to make those kids sit there in the heat…
Rayne @ 8
I dunno, Rayne. It’s a limited edition. I can’t believe they’re selling them so cheaply. I bought a Sailor Magellan on sale from Levenger in 1999 and it has been one of my best pens ever. One thing I think about when adding pens to my collection is that even if I don’t end up using them much, my own kids or neices and nephews or great neices and nephews will eventually get them when I am gone. Given the intensity of the school supply fetish in the men in my family, I suspect that one of those little TRexes will know what they are and how to treat them.
Jane Hamsher @ 9
Oh, Jane. I could show you some websites with Italian paper and notebooks to DIE FOR.
Have you ever used a fountain pen?
You left out the early [oral] years – a new jar of tasty white paste, the really giant crayolas that still had paper wrappers, and a box of long yellow pencils that hadn’t been ground down or chewed up…
Ah TRex, you’ve hit the old nostalgia sweet spot for many of us. I still get that fluttery feeling in my stomach in September at the thought of new supplies. Geeky, too, that I can satisfy the most urgent shopping urge with a couple of notebooks and a new pen or -oooooh – a beautiful antique oak card file.
Thanks, honey. You never fail to deliver a great bedtime story.
Fountain pens are sexy as hell. I had a girlfriend who used to write me sexy love letters on heavy bond stationary scented with my favorite perfume of hers and ever since I’ve had a fetish for fountain pens. Good times. Thanks for the post T.
OldCoastie @ 12
As a college student in the early 80’s, my calculator batteries died one night during finals week (I left it on after a late study session). I woke up at 7 AM for my econ final at 8AM, and discovered the problem. Couldn’t find any fresh batteries, or any friends who didn’t need their calculators for the next couple of hours, so I grabbed my SLIDE RULE and went to the exam. When the prof was passing out the Blue Books, he laughed at the slide rule and said “OK, fun joke – now get out your calculator.” I told him I didn’t have one, and he laughed again.
Throughout the exam, there was the “click-click-click” of calculators, broken only by the “slip-slip-slip” sound of my slide rule. About halfway through the exam, I had this feeling that someone was watching me, and I turned to see the prof looking over my shoulder. “I’ll be damned” he said. “You do know how to use a slide rule. It’s been years since I’ve seen anyone use one of those on an exam.”
Probably never happened again.
I got my slide rule as a gift from my grandfather – an old math teacher and (later) principal – and think of him every time I open the desk drawer and see the leather case that holds it.
Having lived my life by the academic school calendar, I love the first day of school. When I was a child, I spent long hours on our porch swing reading Nancy Drew, any dog stories (A.P. Terhune, a favorite author), horse stories, and just about anything that caught my eye at Finney Library. I remember my biggest thrill beyond my library card was my first paperback. I was standing at the bus stop waiting to go to JoyFarm Riding Academy ( I always went alone; none of my friends liked to ride), and I saw the coolest girl reading a paperback. It was The Good Earth. I never saw her again, but after that, I stood on the bus corner with excellent company–a paperback–and didn’t notice I was alone.
The other back-to-school event I loved was covering my new books. We had to cover them with stiff brown paper covers. I still love very sharp #2 pencils and always graded with a line of them on my desk to choose from.
As a southpaw fountain pens were not my best friend. I can still smell a new big chief tablet and a round at the pencil sharpener. Best smell, Becky Bailey in the coat closet.
for pencils? Ticonderoga #2’s… the yellow pencils with the shiny green writing down the side…
I don’t know if it’s just a product of being raised by a pair of Ph.D.’s or what, but I love the school supplies aisle of any drug store or supermarket more than any other location in the store. I get all weak-kneed for new notebooks, blue ultra-fine-point Sharpies, freshly sharpened pencils (or better yet, fancy mechanical pencils), erasers, folders, stationery, and most importantly, fountain pens and bottles of ink.
It’s not a product of being raised by PhD’s. I’m that way, and my mother is the only college grad in her family; my grandparents essentially raised me, and they had grade-school educations. And still, I love office and school supplies. I find the smell of a box of crayons opened for the first time intoxicating. I’m a rabid collector of notebooks and notepads, of all kinds. I have them everywhere. I live in dollar stores, where I can buy dozens of pens for less than a happy meal. Don’t get me started on pens. I carry at least ten with me at all times, and not just anybody can use my “favorite” pens. I’m not amenable to someone using my lime green fine point. That’s my pen, dammit!
I don’t like pencils, as a rule, except for drawing. The sound of the lead scratching against paper usually sets my teeth on edge.
Oh…and I still love the smell of old-fashioned mimeo ink.
I hated school. I wanted nothing more than to be outside, in a tree with a good book. I was the “reader” of every school I attended, the one kid who had probably read a book long before a teacher assigned it.
Thanks for the great memories, TRex. Even though I hated school. And I agree that summer used to mean something else for kids (FREEDOM!).
Peterr @ 14
I was a freelance copyeditor for a few years, and became a connoisseur of mechanical pencils and high-quality erasers. As long as I had my pencil, my eraser, some spare leads, and a couple pads of mini Post-it Notes™, I could work anywhere (and did). Didn’t pay very well, but the freedom was great.
OldCoastie @ 24
Mmmmmmmm.
Still, if I could have one wish, it would be a box of green John Deere pencils.
Old Coastie, I grew up in the Deep South and we didn’t have air conditioning then, either. We started school around the 2-3 week in August but school was over for the year by June 1.
In Virginia, when King’s Dominion (a theme park) was in the planning stages, they got a commitment from the state to delay schools’ start until the day after Labor Day so that the park could employ teenagers.
Peterr says
September 4th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Ah, yes, the slide rule (which doesn’t have anything to do with ball games, except incidentally). I ahve a heavy-duty K and E with about ten zillion scales that I really don’t know how to use. But I bought it at a time when electronic calculators were well into three digits left of the decimal point, and it got me through a year of junior college. Still have it: ‘Needs No Batteries’.
TRex, I have what I believe to be a “6109: Parker 75, c. 1978; sterling silver grid pattern, gold plated trim, made in USA (fountain pen). And I have a similar pencil. Bought both at a yard sale for $3. I seem to remember that I have the box also. Anyway, whatever I have, they look a lot like the one cited above, from this link:
http://www.vintagepens.com/mod…..pens.shtml
Now, about your mom’s recipe for mac ‘n cheese…
Me too..end of summer, I hated going to school. I would have given anything to have been a drop out at age 16. Ended up with 30 years of formal education. Go figure.
Out here in TEXXXX-uhs, we’ve been in school for three weeks already!
One of my kids is a complete school supply fetishist– she’s got a pathological fear of running out of paper, mechanical pencils, notebooks, erasers, you name it. Today she tried to wheedle another spiral from me–although I know for a fact that she’s got at least a dozen of them stashed in her room.
I’m planning a career for her at Office Depot.
pol @ 28
My first school was built in the early 30s, so no A/C in most of the campus, at least when I attended. We also had those old hissing radiators for heat in the winter. Always had to be careful about standing too close to them. One girl in my class had her polyester dress start melting to her from standing so close to it. Not good!
My favorite was breaking out the lunchbox. I had a baby blue Benji one that I liked, but it was only a replacement to hand-me-down Hank Aaron one that I LOVED!!! My Hank Aaron was stolen in fifth grade and I still despise the sneaky little boy I suspect did it.
Gosh, the memories here . . .
On the other side of my family from the Slide Rule Grandpa is Grandma the Crossword Puzzle Queen. She was an English teacher – when she started teaching, that meant English as a second language for all the German kids in the Lutheran parochial school where the family belonged. Not only did she do crosswords, but she did them fast. In ink. Every day. With no mistakes. Ever. Not in sixty years, that anyone could remember.
Ink pens reek of competence and confidence – just like Grandma. “No chance of a mistake here, so let’s be bold about it!”
Sandia Blanca @ 31
I think I love that kid.
Introduce her to Japanese school supplies. She’ll be a goner.
Sandia Blanca, I was like your daughter when it came to supplies. I still have a drawer full of unused composition notebooks–those black/white ones with the heavy covers. I loved pencil cases with zippers too–and the pink and white erasers.
OT – Josh Marshall has a heartfelt post about his Dad posted at TPM. Requires Kleenex.
soaking up the school supply nostalgia … I remain addicted.
spent the evening with my daughter discussing her day tomorrow when she has a job interview and then her first college class … quite something!
by the way, she just snazzed up Howie’s My Space page a little as her contribution to Blue America – pretty cool, eh? and tomorrow we’ll be hitting the media list with the press announcement of this great tune:
http://www.myspace.com/haveyouhadenough
Peterr @ 34
Uh…
I do that. People at work come out sometimes when I’m on my break, just to watch me work the NYT puzzle in ink, as if that were a sign of being smart or something.
I have a regular classroom for my computer lab. The school was built in the 50’s – counter to (very high) ceiling windows all down the outside wall… center hallway with skylights and kindergartners in every other room… nice and breezy! I do have a/c for the ‘puters, but it is VERY LOUD and I can’t shout enough to talk over ‘em… so, we learn for 5 minutes and slam on the a/c… work for 10 minutes, turn ‘em off and have another little lesson… sounds like a pain, but I don’t mind much…
Pssst!
I’ve got some new graph paper over here . . . green lines, still stiff in the package, just waiting for someone to lay out those quadratic equations, or maybe some data from physics lab . . .
(looking around quickly to see if the coast is clear)
. . . and I’ll cut you a real deal, on the first package. Bring some of your friends, and I’ll cut you an even bigger deal . . .
LJ/Aquaria – I’ve never done the NYT crossword – when I was married (at the tender age of 19) my inlaws were of that NY class that has a house in the Hamptons and every Sunday you gather on the deck for brunch and the chance to prove yourself via the crossword … it was the most competitive sport I have ever witnessed! LOL – haven’t thought about that in a while.
my fave:
http://hans.presto.tripod.com/nibs/osmiroid01.html
love the school supplies aisle.
LJ/Aquaria
get out of my head !
although I might be worse off, the kids tell of their one No More Wire Hangers! moment when someone returned all of mom’s pens to their rightful place – Without The Caps !
p.s. no children were harmed in the making of this confession
LJ/Aquaria @ 39
Your comments impressed me before, but now I bow in great respect.
Fridays must be quite a show at your workplace.
A subject I love, mechanical pencils. Funny thing is the one I like best isn’t very expensive, made by Pilot. Dunno if they’re still in production, but last I looked they were about $15 a piece (Pilot makes much more expensive ones than that). The balance was just perfect. Pens are different, I really like fountain pens (I prefer a little friction on the paper), but they seem a tad pretentious to whip out.
Dogs, Cats and Foutain Pens, Cross, MontBlanc, Parker, Sheaffer, and Pelikan.
CBL – Osmiroids! yes!
oh now I’m going to have to go shopping tomorrow for notebooks and all just to celebrate the season.
No one touches my MontBlanc. I use it only at home for personal notes and cards.
mndean @ 45
A tad pretentious? How very Lake Wobegone-ish! (Is that the MN in mndean?)
Peterr @ 44
But the irony is…
I’m not all that smart! I just know how the puzzles “work.” There are always weirdo clues that only crosswords reference (how many people reference “yetis” on a daily basis???). Once you know most of those, you’re set. The main thing with the NYT puzzle is getting a handle on the theme of the puzzle. If you can get that, you can work your way through the other clues that you might not be so sure about.
Yes, and I still hate to wear shoes…
LJ sed: There are always weirdo clues that only crosswords reference
Sixteen across – aglet. The plastic tip of your shoelace.
I had two cheap (dollar plus change) plastic Shaeffer fountain pens that I used from Jr. High in the 60s thru college. They had sturdy silver nibs (that I wore down to perfection) that laid down a beautiful line of ink–such a pleasure to write with, and draw with. The green one I gave to my oldest kid, and it lasted thru her college years, and the red one I gave to my youngest. She still has it.
Oh, and bring back Pentel felt tip pens! Cool tools!
I used to love school supplies.
Then, my father started taking me with him when he went back to the office at night to make long distance phone calls, and I graduated to…Office Supplies! Post-it notes, file folders, and the hanging folders you put the file folders in, with the little plastic tabs where you insert the labels. The office had IBM Selectric typewriters, which were much more exciting than the old manual one we had at home. The IBMS had a regular black ribbon for typing, but it also had a little reel of white tape that you could use to type over your mistakes. Of course, you could also use White Out.
Sometimes I wish I could go to Office Max and just buy one of everything.
Loved buying school supplies. Could spend hours looking for pens, pads, etc. I loved erasers for some odd reason.
I don’t know about everyone else, but my first September after college was difficult. I had a great job in New York City, loved living in the West Village, but it just felt wrong not to be going to school when fall came around.
Re crossword puzzles – my dad, bless him, used to do the Sunday NY Times crossword puzzle with pen. But it would take him at least several hours to complete – not the 15 -30 minutes it takes Bill Clinton.
cbl @ 43
I’m worse about my books and music collection. Don’t ask what happened to Mr. LJ#2 when he thought he didn’t have to treat my album collection with care before I could retrieve it. I nearly destroyed his USAF career in the process. And I would have, if he hadn’t shown a suitable degree of atonement. Let’s put it this way: Getting on his knees and pleading for mercy was a good start.
I love doing the NYT crossword. I am only at a reliable Wednesday level, tho I can usually slog it through to Saturday. Sorry, pencil only because I love my eraser too much.
And, BTW, I hate Suduko.
And, TRex, here’s the goods on the Parker stuff. Bad pic, only a scan. “As is”.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albu…..Parker.jpg
Wow, I like all of you for your political views and intelligent and articulate writings but I am astounded to learn that so many of you are as addicted to school supplies as I am.
I worked in a stationary store some years back and even though the pay was minimum wage, it was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. I was in HEAVEN being around all the paper and pencils and oh yes, my favorite too, the Fountain Pens.
I received a beautiful Waterman from a friend for my birthday about 4 years ago. I still cherish it.
My oh my what wonderful memories.
Rotring makes the absolute best mechanical pencils. My friend accidentally rolled over his with his Volvo and it didn’t even scratch it.
If I was going to buy a mechanical pencil today, it would be a Rotring Esprit, although the Core looks interesting, too.
I know this comment will get spiked, but I don’t come to FDL to read about school supplies.
If you want to blog about school supplies, start a blog about them.
In a larger sense, if you want to blog about your life, start a blog about it.
dab from CT @ 55
For some reason, Japanese pencil erasers work SO MUCH BETTER than American ones. No crumbling, no faint pencil lines left. If you live near an Asian area like Japantown in LA or SF, go buy your erasers at the Japanese pharmacy.
Dan Robinson @ 60
This is like the people who used to go to the social chat room of a writers forum I used to belong to who complained about the people being…social, rather than talking about “writing.” Gee, writers are people, too. They like to have fun and hang out sometimes.
This is a social thread. It’s a chance for people to be social, to be a community, which is one of the things that makes FDL such a great experience for us.
If that’s not to your liking, start your own blog.
LJ/Aquaria @ 63
I did.
Then go there and talk about whatever you like. Why bug someone else about their blog?
Valley Girl @ 57
Those are late 60’s, early 70’s pens, VG, the Parker 77. It’s a classic. They were made to commemorate the space program. The squares on the barrel are meant to mimic the heat tiles on the bottoms of the re-entry capsules of the Saturn V rockets. They’re very nice pens. You should hang on to them.
LJ/Aquaria @ 65
When I started reading FDL, there was a focus to the writing. That is what I came to FDL to read.
Dan Robinson @ 60
Mr. Robinson, please look at how much the other commenters are enjoying this thread. If it is not to your taste, understand that you are not the only reader here, and that there will be another post up in the morning that you may like better.
Thank you.
TRex @ 65
Oh, and they are real silver.
the bad part about going back to school? NEW SHOES! painful, blister-creating, hard, heavy shoes… ugh!
And Big Chief tablets! And those great big pencils, and brand new crayons, and an Art Gum eraser, I can smell it now.
Remember graduating to college rule notebook paper? How exciting that was!
Now I love to buy chiseled edge “calligraphy” pens. They’re lovely.
Dan Robinson @
67
Well, I guess then we’re just going to have to give you back ALL THAT MONEY you pay to come here. When you start signing my paycheck, you can tell me what to write about.
how many of you had to practice your cursive writing (as in “penmanship”?)
Margot @ 71
I demanded college rule paper in second grade.
Old Coastie – as a good little Catholic school girl, penmanship was the stuff of salvation.
now … I cannot read my own writing!
OldCoastie @ 73
A friend told me that I have the handwriting of a fussy 19th century intellectual.
I think I took that as a compliment.
TRex @ 68
I think that FDL has gone down in quality. I am saying something about it. This should be seen as an example of consumer reaction.
There are probably other people feel that there has been a drop in quality at FDL who don’t say anything. They just don’t read FDL as much. I know that I don’t visit as much as I once did.
Dan Robinson … how very very selfish of you!
Learn some manners or go hang out with all the readers at your blog … really now!
VG–”And, BTW, I hate Suduko.” LOL. I took a book of them to the lake this summer, and my whole family hated it. I had trouble even with the easiest puzzles. Made me feel like a complete idiot. I do like crossword puzzles, though, but had to quit–I was obsessed with them.
OldCoastie @ 73
Oh yes, I won an award one year for best penmanship in my High School. Quite proud of that.
I think that FDL has gone down in quality. I am saying something about it. This should be seen as an example of consumer reaction.
There are probably other people feel that there has been a drop in quality at FDL who don’t say anything. They just don’t read FDL as much. I know that I don’t visit as much as I once did.
You understand that you are saying this on the weekend that Joe Wilson and John Dean have stopped through and had amazing experiences with our community, right? If that means the quality has gone down, then I say let’s push it down even further.
I wonder if Mr. Robinson has read the entire John Dean FDL Book Salon including today’s update.
If that doesn’t satisfy his hunger for a while, I guess he is just out of our league.
Carry on, TRex.
snigger
Siun @ 78
And how am I selfish?
I am commenting on what I preceive to be a lack of quality writing at FDL.
Where is the selfishness?
do not feed!
dab from CT @ 56
June is worse. It took me sooo many years before I shook that vague feeling of disappointment in June that summer vacation wasn’t starting. (Okay, I still haven’t completely shaken it. With luck, I’ll eventually be able to go into semi-retirement and have summer vacations again.)
OldCoastie @ 73
I can’t remember now what grade it was, but I was told at some point during my school years to stop writing in cursive. It was that bad, apparently (and certainly is now, as a result).
Dan Robinson @ 63
Your cookie is in the mail.
If the writer is good enough, good writing can be about anything.
Swopa @ 87
I thought writing with a pen or pencil was positively painful… having a keyboard is a total joy… but you’re right, I can barely pen a sentence “manually” anymore…
Yeah, but does John Dean use a mechanical pencil or a fountain pen?
Arrgh! I can’t believe I forgot to ask that. Yep, things are going downhill around here . . .
…well just remember kiddies…pencils are full of lead. Duh! And we suck on them and get the lead into our bodies…I have at least three friends who have had chelation therapy for lead because of serious illnesses and all were pencil suckers as kids.
Does this make me a concern troll?
Wow TRex- thanks for the info about my pen and pencil. You continue to astound me with your knowledge, from Iraq… to fountain pens.
Honestly, I’m not sure why I should hang on to them, however, if someone else would enjoy them more. I am a lefty, so the fountain pen thingy was always a challenge.
neurophius @ 82
Why do you wonder if I have read it?
I bet Ambassador Wilson has used some fine pens in his day. Should have asked.
hey Trex, got your spiffy new clothes laid out for the first day of school?
just dropping by to say “hi” to everybody.
four days into my month-long FDL detox: so far, so good. In fact this is the first time I’ve even opened FDL while browsing! hasn’t been nearly as difficult as imagined, but that might be deceptive due to a weekend full of soccer tournaments and such (turns out I’ve got two kids: whodathunk!?).
anyway, I’ll check back in a week or so. blog on, folks!
Peterr @ 91
yeah, like he needed any MORE questions! ;-)
Speaking of penmanship, did anyone use the Zaner-Bloser method of writing? Years later I found out there really was a man name Zaner Bloser.
I attended Catholic schools too, and penmanship must have been very stressful because I remember that I was absent the day the class learned how to make small “d’s”! I panicked.
I guess Dan wasn’t here for Book Salon and all the fabulous on-topic, serious discussion. You can’t worry about the direction of the country, world-shaking crises, and colossal grief 24/7. That’s why there is late-nite. And even that is not always lite-nite. Thanks, TRex!
Spiderpaws, pencils have been made of graphite for ages now.
I am an emphatic blue ink person. Other fountain pen friends have tried to convince me to try all sorts of greens and sepias or even particularly brilliant blacks, but I just keep coming back to as royal a royal blue as I can find. Which, at this point is Private Reserve’s American Blue, but I am very partial to Pelikan Blue Black.
Sheaffer used to make a Sapphire Blue that was particularly good, but they don’t anymore.
Punaise! (waving!)
spiderpaws @ 92
Errr, pencil “lead” is graphite, not lead. (Forgive me if this was a joke that I was too humor-impaired to get…)
spiderpaws @ 92
They don’t use lead anymore, just graphite. So, I think that with the exception of certain drawing pencils, you are safe to gnaw your pencil if you must.
We have a supply room at work that I love to go into. Boxes of folders, every size post-it note you could ever want in every color plain or lined, pencils, pens, fine pints, ball points, white out, paper, legal pads in white and yellow, magnet clips, and everything else you could ever want. I go in there a lot to cool off too. The best part about it is not having to go to a cashier and check out.
As much as we miss the puns, I’ve got to say it: Do not feed the Punaise!
OldCoastie @ 72
Cursive was like a four letter word. We were not allowed to use the word cursive. Only script in whatever school it was at that time.
Remember that certain kids would have bite marks all up and down their yellow Mongol pencils?
I like a good yellow pencil because it will stick behind your ear and stay there…
sigh … Punaise has taken Trex’s place in rehab?
black ink – always and forever!
You’re selfish, Mr. Robinson, because this isn’t a hotel or “consumer good” here to serve your needs, it’s a home–and not yours. It’s Jane and Christy’s home. You wouldn’t go in someone’s home and tell them how to clean their carpets or how to serve their meals.
Hey, Punaise, you devil! We miss you!
I bet you’d find this discussion particularly inkeresting.
Sorry Sudoku misspelling. Manager local book store suggest Sudoku puzzle when NYT Crossword book not yet appear. I try. I not like. I not like even more now.
Solve Sudoku (Without even thinking!)
http://www.instructables.com/i…..JEPD7QXGR/
oh yeah, many a good friend perplexed by the sudden revocation of their lending priviledges*g*
OC,
Teacher placed a rubber washer on our wrists as a means of detecting incorrect motion as we practiced -
I loved my father’s magic builder’s pencils with the twirly paper strip you pulled off to sharpen it … always astonished me and remains intensely linked to my memories of him.
Siun, I remember pink pencil-shaped eraser like that, too.
I hated Sudoku until I figured out a simple system for solving it.
Then I immediately became very bored.
I’m not good at Sudoku, either. Darn it. I keep thinking that it needs to have letters in it rather than numbers, then I might be able to get it. I’m a word/letters person. Not numbers!
Dana … I remember the penmanship stress and how amazingly rebellious I felt when I adopted a non-pittman form of the letter “d” in fact. I don’t think kids today have the opportunity for quite that thrill!
so, if I may wander OT for a moment… ya’ know that blog – that new one that will start up tomorrow? the only one that *ilson does not own? it would be rude to be rude on it… but I’m just wondering if some of those “supporters” of the candidate who shall not be named might show up tomorrow to do some writing…
;-) – ;-)
It took me years and years to arrive at a style of penmanship I was happy with. I printed for a long time, but then a couple of years ago, I decided that it was high time to start writing in script, so I wrote letters to everyone I could think of for months. They enjoyed the letters and I beat my script into shape by practicing and practicing until my hand would cramp. Now I’m very pleased with my writing.
LJ/Aquaria @ 117
What she said.
My last final of my college career was an essay test in a class called History of Western Political Thought, pt. 2: Hobbes to Nietzsche.
I wrote 18 pages in two hours with my black Shaeffer fountain pen. I had to use an English Exam book because the US ones had thinner paper, through which the ink would bleed. (I don’t think that the thinner paper is much use to anyone who writes with a fountain pen, though it may be useful to dry one’s tears while one complains about the “quality” of a blog to which one does not contribute anything but plaint.)
I got an A in the class and I still have that pen, but I have hardly written a word in longhand since. I type EVERYTHING into the computer now. Mores the pity, I think.
A girl in my class had a rubber pencil and tried to fool the nuns with it all the time.
Karen Allen – you’re right! those eraser ones were cool but Dad didn’t go in for erasers … and he never wrote like the catholic school boy he had been. (laughing … very good memories indeed)
There was also a little attachment for pencils, a plastic triangular thing that would slip on to the pencil, to help us have better control of the pencil and not grip it too tightly. They cost a quarter. We would always fight to get the red one.
Peterr @ 106
wise words indeed.
re the #2 pencils: lead it be.
later y’all….
well sure -
http://www.nationalreview.com/
ccmask @ 104
I did not say this, but…
You know all that junk mail that goes out? Well, if we can’t deliver it in the USPS we have to throw it away. But, first, someone like me goes through all of it, because letter carriers aren’t perfect. Sometimes they throw away first class mail. We have to retrieve it.
Anyway, most samples are mailed as disposable junk mail, including pens, razors, toothbrushes, calendars, pocket organizers, pen knives (!), cosmetics, radios, toy cars, kid books–the list goes on and on. We’re supposed to throw these things away. But, uh… Well… Gee… A shame to let all that go to waste…
Let’s say that, if I weren’t an office-supply junkie, I wouldn’t have to buy another pen as long as I live.
Old Coastie … I think there is some concern about that blog and it seems the candidate in question is just hoping for nasty comments so he can complain – which seems his only skill.
I’m planning to stay far away from it and really hope it will just be left alone. I can think of nothing more wonderful than a shiny new blog all set up to trap whine-able comments and getting no comments at all.
cbl @
127
ZING!!
CBL!!!! that was the perfect comment!
Siun @ 129
oh, I wasn’t thinking about whinable fodder… just classic/typical statements by some of his favorite friends… (fortunately, I’m not nearly clever enough!)
So… Valley Girl has a nice, shiny vintage silver pen up for grabs, pending the receipt of TRex’s mom’s Mac’n’cheese recipe…
but TRex is playing his cards pretty close to his chest…
I however, having the SAME MAMA, and having access to that recipe….
am… intrigued….
Old Coastie – I don’t know how but it would be interesting to monitor the traffic flow in numbers. Does site meter work on all web sites?
Uh oh. I sense family devisiveness over Mac and cheese and a silver pen. Snark.
Eureka Springs, AR @ 134
I think the site meter only works for us when it is set up that way…
Patrick @ 133
That would be the perfect pen for you, Patrick. Classic, precise, and que macho!
just realized I’m sitting here, nodding my head up and down with a huge smile on my face thinking yes, yes, I remember that, with each new posting.
So many memories come flooding back.
Sheaffer’s Sapphire Blue was one of my favorites. I also loved the Peacock Blue. Still prefer Blue to Black ink.
TRex @ 136
Oh, another attempt to get TRex’s goat fails miserably.
Harrumph.
Patrick @ 139
oh! you really ARE brothers, aren’t you? yup, I can tell…
Patrick!!! Obviously you read more closely than TRex does, or he chose to ignore the offer for negotiation. Not only do I have the pen, but I have the pencil.. They are vintage as I have learned here, but obviously used. I have found a lot of stuff in my yard sale and thrift shop days that are “worth” a lot more than I paid. I always love to pass them on to a good home. At this point, it’s just “stuff” to me, if I know someone else would love to have it/them. So, are you a fountain pen afficiando?
g’nite all … gotta be up for work early
and thank you Trex – school supplies leads to very good memories indeed!
punaise @
127
whisper those words of wisdom, p, even if you’re just lurkin’ (and quit your posting, or I’ll tell VG!)
good night, Siun… (I promise, I will behave myself!)
I gotta hit the sack but I found this for Trex.
Ode to an Ink Pen
by Mr. Bud Wallace
Oh, lonely ink pen,
Resting in my hand,
I hope you’re not feeling sad,
Do you wish you could lie in the sand?
Patrick @
134
Just two words: little brothers!
Peterr, I believe that Punaise is an honorable man. I will whack him if needs be, but so far, he has been 99% well behaved.
V. Girl-
I have a couple of student fountain pens- the sort of thing that got me through notes taking and exams in college and EXACTLY the sort of thing that makes TRex sigh and hope that one day I will come to my senses. (Y’know, and get a REAL pen…)
But I type so much now. I am a touch-typist and can type almost as fast as I can write in longhand, plus, y’know, spellcheck has changed my life.
If I recall correctly, several threads ago, you missed TRex by seconds as he was signing off for bed, and you asked if we were identical or fraternal twins- the answer is “identical.” Though years of very different lifestyles have made us look quite different now, when we were younger we were bookends.
My Mom left her jewelry to my sisters, but left me her Waterman blue marble fountain pen. (I always knew she liked me best…)
all right gang… got to get myself on school schedule now…
sweet dreams, everyone!
So my teacher Mrs. Plant (third grade Omaha, NE) who would not allow the use of the word cursive in describing script sounds like she would have been alone in her view from the lack of response in this thread. hmmm I may have to google her.)
Peterr- Patrick and TRex are twins. Fraternal or identical, I have not gotten them to address. But, I believe you are correct, IIRC, about Patrick having been first out of the gate.
TRex @ 121,
I did the same thing wrt printing for years, then changing to script. Pretty printing just got to be painfully slow.
So I missed punaise’s driveby? Damn! What brought him out – a telepathic urge to show Mr. Robinson somebody still knows how to write here?
End of summer garden cleanup over the holiday. For instance, I pulled all our Siberian Irises and separated the rizomes. Now I’ve got about 7,000 (seriously!) iris rizomes to get rid of. Sheesh. Ideas?
School supplies:
Daughter in college – books, plane, crew team, tuition – yikes. Other than books, she buys her own supplies.
Son in HS – skis, skis, ski stuff. He’s a senior and school supplies ran less than $50 so far.
Wife, retired teacher, starting new job mentoring interns (a year-long student teaching program which is dynamite) – new folders, laptop.
Me, teaching college – refurbished laptop w/ 3-yr warranty, chalk (I still use blackboard version 1.0).
Anybody heard from katymine today?
and I must confess to you, VG-
if I were to give away that mac’n’cheese recipe in a public forum, there would be an awful shunning at the next family gathering. I would be the family pariah for no small amount of time.
I was teasing TRex and didn’t expect him to be so (faux?) blas about it. Not much fazes a 60ft Therapod, I guess…
mutzali @ 149
Rowr.
(popped into mod just before signing off and noticed that there are some very informative comments just added to the end of the Blumenthal post – re EPA whistleblowers thing – anyone interested in that legal issue might check and I’ve encouraged the commenter to repost on an active thread so they don’t get overlooked)
and now really off… OC, the nuns always know!
Patrick- just read your response about the identical thing. Thanks. I’ve known 5 sets of identical twins. Most memorable were those who were sisters of a college boyfriend. They went to different schools, bec. mom wanted to make sure that they were… not a like. And, blimey, they were totally different in appearance and attitude. If you saw them together, you would never guess that they were sibs, much less id twins. I guess that femmes just have much more latitude as far as appearance, what with the makeup, dress options, etc. (oops, just read your latest, Patrick, and see that the guys also have options).
Late Nite FDL: An Ode to School Supplies
TRex always was ode school
Hi all from Cordova Alaska!
Raining otters and seals here right now…
3sivund @ 161
And he always knew where to find a supplier of verses . . .
(now behave yourself, before VG sees you)
katymine @ 161
*raises tiny forelimbs to face*
I love otters!! They’re my totem animal!!
Valley Girl @ 159
Well, by “lifestyle choices” having left us very different looking, one of the things I meant was that I have some some scars and a mildly crooked nose from… um… brawling from time to time… Aheh…. hm. Yes.
I also don’t wear glasses any more and I do a lot of outdoor physical work (a LOT) as well as working on cars and machinery, so we’re very different builds now- he’s slender and urbane, I am broad and sunburnt.
But you could tell we’re related from half a mile off, I think…
katymine @ 162
Otters and seals? The Kid would be so jealous, if he were awake.
TRex,
What a great thread, thanks. I’ve got a school supplies story that might send you into spasms of ecstacy. Back in the 1970’s I worked in a wonderful small shop that made acoustic guitars in Winfield, KS. It so happens that Winfield (along with Easton, PA) is one of the towns where Binney and Smith Crayolas are manufactured. The crayons that go west are made in KS, the ones intended for the eastern market are made in PA.
Anyway, they give tours, and there is nothing like being in a big old factory with millions and millions of colorful crayons buzzing around on conveyor systems. The smell is intoxicating, and so much about the place is familiar, it sets off all your old grade school memories. There are all the old familiar boxes with crayons in all the traditional colors. I’m not a big fan of the newer day-glo and psychedelic shades, given that I was in first grade in 1954. Give me that old blue-green or carmine and I’m happy.
Here’s a link to a photo of one of the production stations at the B – S plant…
http://www.binney-smith.com/images/timeline/18.jpg
p.s. Patrick, I wasn’t thinking of giving it away on a public forum, that mac ‘n cheese recipe. I was suggesting a private negotiation. And, I hope you know that mac n’ cheese is a vegetable on the Blue Plate Special, round about here.
The ferry from Whittier to Cordova was late, they were not sure that they would make it to Valdez due to fog but we did get to stop there. Saw the Columbia Glacier, what a sight…. 27 miles of glacier and it goes right to the waters edge!
It is pouring rain….
naughty naughty Punaise!!! Can’t fool me.
Dan Robinson @
77
Late Nite was started primarily as a social thread, a place for night owls to hang out and chat about whatever. The subject matter has always been extremely open, and I designed it from the start to be that way (it’s been going strong for over a year, and since TRex has taken over I’d say comment volume has roughly doubled).
If you’re going to whine, please come up with something more original than “firedoglake has gone downhill.” It’s rather unimaginative, and since it’s an opinion that appears to have been formed without the benefit of paying a great deal of attention to the various niches we now provide, does not carry much weight.
TRex @ 163
Is “totem animal” saurian for “appetizer?”
Hey, katymine – weather hold up across the Sound?
Cosmo @ 167
Winfield? Acoustic Guitars?
Can you say “Walnut Valley Festival”?
Valley Girl @ 153
You can have twins through a gate??? That sounds a lot easier than the way I had mine!!!
cosmo-
when we were wee little boys, TRex used to drop those same crayolas into the radiators at school because they’d melt because he liked the smell. He would try to get me to do it until I finally gave in, and would drop one little tiny piece of crayon in the radiator…
AND THEN I WOULD GET IN TROUBLE FOR IT.
It’s always been like that, y’know?
cosmo @ 166
I love the first leaves in spring that pop out on pecan trees because they are the exact color of a crayola Spring Green crayon. This generally coincides with the first wysteria.
I love all the seasons. My favorite season is always the one that’s happening right now.
Jane,
TRex’s slippery slope?
otters and seals is Cordovan for cats and dogs…
Amen, Jane.
So, VG, what is up with you and punaise? Is he being punished for his puns? Not like him to just do a drive-by…what have I missed?
neurophius @ 177
He’s trying to manage his addiction to FDL by laying out for a month so he can get caught up with life out in The Big Room (i.e., “the real world”).
For the second day the sun rose over the hill behind the BTI and nearly blinded me… as it struck the windows of my 15th story condo window…. it started to cloud up as the ferry was getting loaded but there was a severe weather warning that is coming into the sound …. it was slightly foggy in and out of Valdez and started raining as we came into Cordova… it let loose just a few minutes ago and it is really pounding rain.
We are out at the Orca Lodge which has wireless but we do not have cell phone coverage…
ET btw if you did not catch it the other day… the Hobo Bay is closed and for sale.
well, I have to be at my desk in a few short hours, prepared to take calls from the mystified and the confused.
So, it won’t do for me to be in one of those states tomorrow.
Today, by the way, I harvested a 35 pound watermelon. I hadn’t made my way over to that part of our field in some days and it had put on one hell of a growth spurt. It was hiding behind a some pepper plants while it got HUGE.
I called three friends and told them about it. Boy, it doesn’t take much to get me excited sometimes…
mutzali @ 173
Oh, that is hilarious. Can you guess I don’t have kids?
TRex @ 178
You mean, there’s a real world?
My first schoolbag was some kind of red plaid material, with buckles. Our family moved from one small midwestern town to another in the middle of my first grade year, and I was forced by the Benedictine nuns to stand up there in front of the class at age six and introduce myself to the other kids with my fucking stupid red plaid bag full of school supplies. Worst moment of my life…
TRex:
Thank you for sharing this. I too, have a sense memory-based compulsion for school and office supplies. Though lately, I have also taken to hours spent at The Container Store.
For me, September is just as much about the slight change in the temperature of the breeze, the crisp smell of the air shifting from languid to smoke.
These are the days that make writing the fresh first notes in your new Composition Notebook journal with a Pelikan, Shaffer, Osmiroid or Mont Blanc calligraphy pen all the more worthwhile. Ahhhh..autumn.
Peterr,
I’m one of the guys that started the Walnut Valley Festival. Wrote the first program, in ‘71 I think, when we featured Doc Watson, Norman Blake, and Dan Crary.
neurophius @ 177
Punaise has a bunch of projects to do, needs to do an FDL sabblogical for that reason, and won’t be around FDL for a month unless he caves in- which he said on a recent Late Night Thread. He emailed me privately to ask that I encourage him in this temporary leave. That is the source of my comments here.
What I can’t figure out is…
Why, when I was a kid in junior high and high school, didn’t kids use backpacks? I can remember having to carry a stack of heavy textbooks under my arm as I walked home…a backpack would have made so much more sense. It just wasn’t done then.
cosmo… many of us have sad stories about the first day at some new school, I moved 4 times from Kindergarten to HS Graduation and every time during the school year. I remember my first day in my Sophomore HS move wearing “gold” shoes that went with a Christmas dress because it was the only pair that I could find. I was “branded” as the eclectic but soon there were girls showing up with gold shoes. I was embarrassed and did not know I was leading the fashion…
katymine,
At least you had almost two days of good weather, especially yesterday. Yeah, I caught your comment last night, but I couldn’t stay. At least I got to watch and read Joe Wilson and John Dean over the weekend.
I really wanted to comment this morning on the thread (which?) where so many people were looking for slogans for the Dems to win. I couldn’t help noticing as I was reading through the thread that there were a helluva lot of good slogans in that thread alone. Maybe, rather than a bunch of new slogans, we need to develop a slogan mining program that sifts through all the good ones here already…
Anyone interested in discussing the nuances of eraser smells?
No, but erasers are an evolving artform. I have a particular one that I use when I am doing the NYT crossword.
cosmo @ 186
Yesterday it was John Dean and Ambassador Wilson, and now one of the founders of the Walnut Valley Festival . . .
Damn, FDL is a great place.
(John McCutcheon and John Prine are my favorites.)
Ed*ard Teller, Thank you for all your help with my vacation, it has been so much fun. If anyone gets a chance to come to Alaska, please do. We are already planning our next trip here.
Sure have a lot of reading to do to catch up on the book threads.
TRex, the otters are rafting up in the coves here getting ready for winter. The Forest Service person told us that they have hundreds who raft up in each of the little coves. Pretty interesting sight. The float on their backs with their heads and 4 feet out of the water.
I bought my house with a neglected wisteria monster to close to my large screened in back porch. Did you know wisteria is in the pea family? Anyway, It grows back enough in late summer just enough to find it’s old paths inside the screens. So my porch in spring is adorned with (bug free) wisteria. d.e.v.i.n.e.
Jane Hamsher @
9
There’s also the wonderful smell of magic markers.
Many is the coke addict who would’ve been spared were they permitted a harmless magic marker jones.
joysness @ 139
I LOVED the Peacock Blue. Loved my old calligraphy kits with the assortment of colored inks. My favorite ‘paper’ to letter on is white birch bark, it feels like writing on velvet.
I’ve always thought I’ve been a scribe in past lives, I’ve always been fascinated with inks and papers and scripts. I keep a couple of permanent ink felt calligraphy pens from art supply stores in my purse at all times since the ink doesn’t run but love my real calligraphy pens that don’t leave my house.
One of my earliest memories of school was practicing my letters, they were just too plain and didn’t look right so I added little curly serifs to each one that had an open stroke. I’ll never forget my stunned shock to see a big red F when my paper came back complete with a scolding from the teacher, I was devastated that my pretty and perfect letters were ‘wrong’. Heh. I felt she was wrong, I was remembering how they were done long ago.
cosmo @ 184
Doc was here a week ago.
Funny you mentioned smell. Most of my strong memories of early school supplies this evening are smell. My first school lunch box was a metal army ammo box. Distinct odor memory from that one for sure.
I hated *school* from the get go til the end (except for the friends I made). Kinda weird for someone who ended up as a prof.
Valley Girl @ 198
Whoa, VG – that was me too. Now, I love school. At least until from finals ’till the paperwork is in.
May have already been mentioned (just checked stuff for today now): Fahrney’s. My father has quite the fountain pen collection, begun 20 years ago. The Fahrney’s catalogue gives the lie to “pocket jewelry.”
TRex – When I went to Japan I asked my friends in advance about paper. I really wanted to find exotic paper. One day in Sendai I finally managed to get an escort downtown to a small shop with a little old man working away inside. He was an important man who supplied executives in government and various companies. Much to my surprise 99% of the paper mans supplies where from Tailand or China. His selection was exquisite and I still have a few note books as well as some handmade paper. He said nobody makes paper in Nippon anymore. Sure wish I would have considered paper in Italy. I had no idea.
Ed*ard Teller @ 199
Strange…
I hated school, but I’ve been a trainer or instructor in nearly every job I’ve had since 1981. I wish there were better opportunities for me to pursue with teaching within the USPS. I’d really enjoy doing that.
I liked school only when I could explore a topic through writing about it…but on my terms. I hated when instructors kept the parameters too narrow. I needed plenty of room to work within, to analyze and synthesize. I hated essay questions like, “Explain how X affected Y.” That’s just regurgitation of facts, not analysis.
Ah so I’m not the only stationery addict in the world. While my best friend shops for shoes I go to the stationery shop. At the end, we’re both equally giddy with delight.
I’ve always loved fountain pens but I’m left-handed and need one with a left-handed nib. I last looked for one about 10 years ago but had no luck. I hadn’t thought to look on the Internet but now I have and there are lots! I’m about to order one now. Thanks TRex, my fountain pen love is no longer unrequited!
This is from Lew Rockwell, who is a conservative/libertarian idealogue. It shows Libertarians reaching for the blue. For instance,
What this implies for libertarians is a crying need to draw a clear separation between what we believe and what conservatives believe. It also requires that we face the reality of the current threat forthrightly by extending more rhetorical tolerance leftward and less rightward.
Rockwell continues,
The most significant socio-political shift in our time has gone almost completely unremarked, and even unnoticed. It is the dramatic shift of the red-state bourgeoisie from leave-us-alone libertarianism, manifested in the Congressional elections of 1994, to almost totalitarian statist nationalism. Whereas the conservative middle class once cheered the circumscribing of the federal government, it now celebrates power and adores the central state, particularly its military wing.
This huge shift has not been noticed among mainstream punditry, and hence there have been few attempts to explain it – much less have libertarians thought much about what it implies. My own take is this: the Republican takeover of the presidency combined with an unrelenting state of war, has supplied all the levers necessary to convert a burgeoning libertarian movement into a statist one.
The remaining ideological justification was left to, and accomplished by, Washington’s kept think tanks, who have approved the turn at every crucial step.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roc…..scism.html
From the left of the dems, Greens like me have put our party on sabbatical until the Bushistas are out. Rockwell’s Libertarians are disgusted with the authoritarians. Disaffected Republicans are looking for a sane alternative.
We need to keep pushing Howard Dean, Wes Clark, Russ Feingold, John Murtha, Jim McDermott, Dennis Kucenich and others to the fore. The old guard of the Dems has got to be put to work or put to pasture (has that been said here before?).
LJ/Aquaria, ET-
Not to dimimish the posters here who love school. They might have their own reasons, which we (you and I and ET) didn’t “resonate with”. Apart from the friends I made, it really was a time of “enforcement” (for lack of a better word to sum it all up). Summers were so much better. I could do whatever I wished, be it a making crocheted cape for my favorite tiny plastic dog, or figuring out how to make dress patterns from a book I’d found in the local library, or… whatever!!! Honestly, there wasn’t much reward for “creativity” during my school days, and perhaps that is why I hated school.
I had a rough time with school being a natural born rebel and moving around didn’t help with nine schools under my belt by the eighth grade. My Jr. and High school in small town southern Ar was full of bigots and rednecks so it was all about survival until I could escape that deliverance hell hole. My voracious appetite for books as a youngster had no limit. I don’t think my parents have any idea to this day that I read every book, manual, or label I could get my hands on several times. Reading made a permanent night owl out of me and I tested out at a collage reading level in the second grade. The feel and smell of old books went straight to my head and I would run for a quiet spot to savor every page. It took chess, rock and roll and girls to pull Henry Miller, John McPhee, Hess and Tolkien out of my eleven year old hands. *sigh*
What college I was able to afford (thank you California) were among the best years of my life.
Well, ET your link is a whopper of a read. I clicked on it and did a quick read. Alas, I’m not sure that the parts that you quote above really do the article justice, because just reading that, I didn’t really get the message. (xxoo) So, all, please click on ET’s link, and read the entire article.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roc…..scism.html
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.
How is everyone tonight?
SteveAudio @ 208
Hi SteveAudio — sorry I missed you last night.
SteveAudio- hello. But to get a sense of how everyone is tonight, you need to plow your way through the comments. There is no easy answer to your question. Except, that for myself, I am still alive and typing. ;)
ET – Nice catch, thanks. Was thinking about Libertarians and how they must feel in an authoritarian quagmire during John Deans threads. They were wrong in ‘94 imo, with the exception of gun rights.
Hi Steve
It’s late here
g’nite all
Valley Girl @ 207
I forgot to put in there that Lew wrote this on the last day of 2004, so he’s been onto this for awhile.
Eureka Springs, AR @ 211
Good night.
I hope we see in November that many of those who voted Republican — enabling and actively facilitating this mess we’re in now — have voted the other way (not just stayed home). Signs are encouraging (from cnn). But a large fraction think it still won’t make any difference (the old “all politicians lie” canard). We have to show them they’re wrong.
Hi folks, hey Kak
VG 210, I’m doing that as we speak, while writing a small piece for my own place.
Trex,
As a daily reader of FDL but an infrequent commenter, I find your posts to be fun reading. The commenter who is so concerned about quality unfortunately must have missed the great Dean/Wilson Book Salon thread, one of the best threads on the Blogs. While I am not able to be present while the Book Salon is happening, I do enjoy reading the resulting threads later that evening. The FDL Book Salon is one of my favorite threads on the Net.
FDL is one of the best blogs on the Net. And one of a few select blogs that I regularly read. I especially like the mix of articles and the mix of personalities who do the writing. ;-) Keep up the good work!
LJ/Aquaria @
111
Hah! You never met my mother.
OT/EPU’d idea about that horrible 9/11 movie.
I know this comment will get spiked, but I don’t come to FDL to read about school supplies.
If you want to blog about school supplies, start a blog about them.
HALL MONITORS! There’s an old school memory for you… and it seems like somebody misses those days when a plastic sash gave some kids the power to be as petty as they could manage.
(Probably dating myself here, because I can’t imagine the modern grammar/middle school allowing a largely self-selected batch of the most authoritarian-oriented upper-grade boys the “right” to police their fellows & juniors. If only for liability reasons!)
Also, one irreplaceable supply not yet mentioned: 3×5 index cards. Ruled, unruled, horizontal or vertical, colored or plain — useful for everything from shopping lists to shimming a wobbly school desk. Levenger, of course, has based its business on these wonderful bits of cardstock, so I know I’m not the only adult addict {grin}.
lobster, I hope that you will check out Christy’s next post, when it goes online at FDL. She has something re: these issues.
Ed*ard Teller @
204
It was the neocons and the Project for the New American Century (which some call “The Project to Establish the Fourth Reich”) who effected this dramatic shift in Republican thinking from something resembling Libertarianism in 1994 to something resembling Fascism a decade later. Their methods bring to mind Hermann Goering’s comment at Nuremberg:
But the Norquist-style Libertarians aren’t blameless. To starve the federal government, it doesn’t stuffice to bankrupt it. We must also squander its ability to borrow. Only when it reaches the limit of the taxpayers’ credit can we be confident that the federal government will no longer provide goods and services to its citizens. ;-)
Good Morning from eastern Maine, where the new day is lovely!! About 57 degrees, clear, a little mist rising above the field. I had no particular nostalgia for school days until reminded here. While I love the rurality of my surroundings, what I wouldn’t give for a great 1st class university close to hand, where I could study and socialize with the greatest minds. So how lucky am I to attend Firedoglake University? Now I ask you………can’t we have FDL U hoodies?
Lobster @ 216
Excellent idea.
I’m particularly concerned about the indisious plot to have school children view and discuss this nonsense as though it were real documentary. Imagine the outcry that would result if someone suggested doing that with an Oliver Stone movie.
BTW, in addition to the excellent rebuttal yesterday by Sheldon Rampton at http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..king-911/, Media Matters rebuts the miniseries’s claim that Clinton established the “walls” between various U.S. intelligence services at http://mediamatters.org/items/200609010001
In either yesterday or today’s NY Times there is an article about purchasing school supplies. Their focus is on the volume and cost, rather than the pleasure of it all. Have any of you guys seen the list of items kids today are required to provide. If you have a couple of three kids, and each has a three page list of materials, you’re talking hundreds of $$$$. Lists include boxes of tissues and paper toweling along with very specific requirements for various and numerous notebooks, binders, pens, whole boxes of pencils, the usual crayons, markers in addition to calculators. We’re talking public school folks. What do the poor people do? Did you know parents can charge a semester of lunch to a credit card? First week in and there are collections for class dues, PTA, school photos etc. In colder climates, families are trying to save for the heating bill along with properly attiring the kids for winter. It’s getting harder and harder for families to savor the enjoyment of past rituals. In some districts, year books are available for purchase from first grade on. In NY a class trip from the suburbs by bus into the city to the theatre can cost about $70. If there is one bread winner in a family, and that person is a non professional, they’re simply unable to comfortably afford to send children to school. Times have changed my friends.
One more thing. Kids today are required to supply cans of tennis balls. They are cut sufficiently to slip over the legs of chairs in order to silence all the noise from moving about. Now, only 3 balls come in a can, and we all know that chairs have 4 legs. I haven’t bought tennis balls in years but, bet they’re pricey.
Good morning, pups.
George A. @
10
Neurophilis at 187, we used green book bags back in the day………I still have one shoulder higher than the other…….
Good morning FDL, I’ve got the coffee brewing,(Sumatran this morning)grilled corn muffins and sausages for any who want them.
I love this post, school supplies are just fun to look through, the sense of possibilities unbounded, the potential for organization, just lovely to look at. (Of course, I use school supplies all year long now) And fountain pens, I do adore them. (Though all my calligraphy is done with dip pens, much easier to control)
OT: Resist the anticipated efforts to indemnify members of the Bush administration against war-crimes prosecution by amending the War Crimes Act during the remainder of this session of Congress.
test
Wigwam, let’s keep this attempt visible, and rock against it heartily. The nerve of those %$^(*&^%s.
Morning everyone.
Hope everyone got a chance to see the latest installment of answers provided by John (the worker) Dean, in the thread just before TRex’s Late Night.
Oh gawd, pens. I need to slim down my collection, which has lots and lots of Sheaffers, good Parkers, lovely Pelikans, a couple of Eversharp Skylines, Waterman hard rubber… I’ll stop now.
The golden age of fountain pens was probably from the 30s to 50s (leaving out, perhaps, the war years when the materials were scarcer). You have such a great combination: precision engineering, aesthetic design and a mass market, which gave way eventually to the throwaway ballpoint.
But buy a 1950s Sheaffer Admiral or Parker 51 and it’ll last another 50 years. Whereas the laptop that I’m typing this on, although very lovely, will be a near-curio in a handful.
Sure wish I would have considered paper in Italy. I had no idea.
Florence: where leather meets paper and everyone falls in love.
Pseudonymous, oh, absolutely. My Baron brought back a gift, for me, from Italy, handcrafted notecards. Paper so wonderful to write on, they take the ink the way it’s supposed to be. Chalk is worked into the paper by hand rubbing, and the surface is like nothing I can find over here.
OldCoastie @
12
Let’s hear it for dittos. mmmm. warm, fresh dittos.
Ron Russell @
193
I, too, have a major fountain pen jones going on.
I work in DC, and Fahrney’s Pens is a block from my office. Get thee behind me, Satan!
Also, Kohinoor Rapidograph drafting pens.
pseudonymous in nc @
232
I wonder about that. In fity years will old laptops be collectibles? “Oh wow, I found a sweet Powerbook from Ought Six at an estate sale!”
I’d say our decendants will probably have salvaged the metal and recycled the plastic.
I own http://www.Joe2006Blog.com and http://www.BlogJoe2006.com and just acquired http://www.DumpJoe2006.com — Enjoy!
School starts waaay before Labor Day in GA these days.Today marks the beginning of week 4 of the school year and continues until right before Memorial Day.I think that’s a shame really,summer should be longer and lazier.
I hoard school supplies,lol.Paper,colored pencils,folders,crayons,markers,pens,erasers.I share though,some stuff my son uses,some of it goes to a Lakota child I sponsor in South Dakota,and some of the stuff is mine,heehee.I also hoard art supplies,to the point of almost ridiculous.Brushes and sponges,paints,fancy papers I find on sale,fabric,I probably have enough here to open my own art school.Almost.
My husband bought me a Mont Blanc pen for my b-day a few years ago,a ball point.It writes like a dream.I love that thing.It’s perfectly balanced,and a joy to use.I have an old fountain pen,but I haven’t mastered using it yet.Being left handed,I smear the ink going across the page as I write.
I used to work as a personal assistant for a graphic designer in Buckhead,her specialty was designing invitations and letter head,notecards,business cards,etc.On ridiculously expensive but lovely papers from all over the world.She was a pain in the ass,but I loved her shop and working there.She even showed me how to make my own paper with cotton or silk scraps.Time consuming,but fun.
wicked, *ilson — Wicked GOOD!
Hello all — just back from a weekend in New Hampshire. Totally stressed reentry today. Little Imm’s first day in Kindergarten tomorrow….
Life is pernicious, no?
I was up late Monday night reading John Dean’s responses and all our interchange – when I woke up this morning, I noticed I was feeling better about, you know, everything; and I realized that I was heartened (love that word) by having this community, this truly amazing venue for connecting and sharing with people of like mind. And to have had John Dean and Joe Wilson and Dr Bob all on here on Sunday – it just blows my little mind, and heartens me. Thanks all.
Good Morning Imm and *Ilson! Imm, you were up in my neck of the woods then.
Morning again. Beard, how was your SCC workshop? And Imm, breathe…..
Beard5 — Eastern White Mountains Jackson/Conway, etc… you around there?
mmmpg, mmph.
OS! I can’t breath!
Imm, once you pass out, normal functions SHOULD resume……….
Ah, I’m further south, Imm, but this weekend I was up near to Concord.
OS, the Celtic Knotwork workshop went beautifully. I was planning on one student and it turned out that I had five, and two wanted to become apprentices to me. (You may need to be a SCAdian to understand why that has me laughing.)
I also ended up giving an impromptu time-management/project-completion workshop as well. That was a hoot. Oh, and even though I had no embroidery supplies with me, I ended up teaching basic stitches to a lovely couple from Nova Scotia.
It was a good weekend for me.
Beard, I remember every stitch I was taught in a brief fifth grade handsewing class……..
Valley Girl @
205
I occurs to me that you (and instructors like you) disliked school because you are good teachers. I’ve always been good at breaking down a subject and teaching others (the best way to cement one’s own mastery of a subject that I’ve found), and felt enormously frustrated by profs who couldn’t teach.
Patrick
at 10:38 pm:
Just catching up on last night’s thread. Very enjoyable! And I just love Patrick’s twisting kick.
New Post!
I too am an office/school supplies addict. Sometimes it’s a full-on OfficeDepot spree, others just a quick hit on the “on sale” tags at the local pharmacy.
I’ve always had a thing for good pens – not necessarily high-end, just ones that are comfortable to use and have good ink flow. Even though our office supplied pens, I would use my own, which led to inquiries, which led to demands that the office order the pens I used… From then on, every time I “traded up,” so did they.
Ah, the smell of mimeos! Remember how everyone in the class would suck the whole page to their collective faces to breathe deep that strangely intoxicating aroma?
Our school had old radiators, too. We moved beyond crayons when they produced that gum in the 70s that had a liquid center. That blew up real nice.
I feel bad for kids today that seem to have every moment scheduled, even in summer. I remember going to the library once a week and wandering the stacks, just pulling books that caught my eye, scanning the endflaps, and compiling a tottering stack that I would shove along with my foot til I was done. Once I discovered The Count of Monte Christo, I read it at least once every summer. Always a book, a tree, a dog, and me. Sure, some more populated and rioutous times, but those days are the ones I can transport myself back to with a whiff of new mown grass or freshly harvested wheat.
Ok, here’s one for you. My daughter’s teacher sent home a list that requested “4 single subject notebooks. No spiral notebooks for safety reasons.”
Can someone please explain to me how you can possibly be injured by a spiral bound notebook? What suburban Soccer Mom’s twisted mind came up with an injury that could be caused by such things? I feel like the knight in the Holy Grail who makes fun of the vorpal bunny. It’s just absurd. In all my 40 years, I have never known anyone to have suffered at the hands of a spiral bound notebook.
Well, they’ve taken all of the fun things out of the playgrounds and regulated suburban childhood to death. I suppose notebooks are the logical next step. I can imagine the incensed teachers beating children over the head while screaming, “I said, No wire notebooks!”
It took me a half an hour longer of searching the Staples store to locate the elusive single-subject-but-not-spiral-notebooks. (No ordinary composition books would do because the pages are not 3-hole punched.) 99% of their inventory was spiral and other teacher’s kids were snapping them up left and right. I found my cache tucked away in a corner, covered in dust.
This does not bode well for the rest of the school year.
Spiral notebooks. Isn’t that how the rapture is supposed to arrive?
I do not see reason for dispair regarding a facist takeover of America. Why? Demographics. Voters under 25 are solidly Democratic from the polling reports I have seen. And that is also where Howard Dean’s 50 State strategy comes into play. Make the Republican work to retain seats in currently “safe” districts. Challenge Trent Lott in Mississippi. With economic conditions what they are in Mississippi there is no reason 80% of white voters should vote for Lott. Except for ship building, what has Lott done for Mississippi.
TRex @
101
School supplies are still exciting and full of promise for me as well. It was Weaver fountain pens for me, woth the soft plastic blue ink loads. Got a new one every year.
My 10 year-old daughter was just gushing about her new two-tip Sharpies.
And an office supply store is the only store I actually enjoy spending time in.
I still have two Sheaffer fountain pens, one is gold made in the early 60s and the other stainless from the 70s. I use them both out of the house but prefer to dip with a nib and holder at home. The old composition books are still the best for journals and such and real ink doesn’t bleed out on the page. I keep all my excerpts in them. We have a small family-owned office supply store on the beach and the aroma is to die for. Real paper and real ink. Shelby Foote wrote his 3-volume civil war narrative entirely with a dip pen.
Primary day here in Florida. I’m hoping Harris wins so we can hammer her in November. Her losing in the primary isn’t punishment enough IMHO. But being Treasurer for Samm Simpson, I’ve got enough to worry about trying to unseat Bill Young. Ray McGovern is coming next weekend for a fundraiser for Samm on Sunday and a 9/11 peace rally in Tampa sponsored by Veterans For Peace on Monday.
I’ve always liked the like of things written with fountain pens. Like someone else upthread, I’m a lefty too. The ink doesn’t dry before my hand goes over what I’ve just written…
:-(