Notes

 Picture this, you are out somewhere and an idea pops into your head. If your anything like me, (?) you pull out your pen and your notebook and scribble a note. Now, I have to admit, I don’t see a lot of people walking around with pens and notebooks in their pockets, now days the phones take preference.  Still, I’d like to think there are a few out there!

    I have been writing notes for decades. It came from my profession. Being a machinist, I had to do lots of basic math problems and often needed to figure out angles and the lengths of their sides, trigonometry. A simple calculator would do the trick, but I always felt that to fully understand the problem, a sketch was usually necessary.

    I also needed to remember the numbers I had just figured out, the memory banks aren’t quite as good as I would like them to be. A notebook was always on my work bench and a writing implement was always near-by.

    For my own thoughts and notes, things that had nothing to do with work; I started carrying a small notebook in my chest pocket. Naturally, a pen was clipped in beside it. Its contents consisted of things such as, quotes I’d come across in books, dreams I had the night before, grocery lists and ideas about things I might write about.

    Dealing with that last subject, when I got home or had some free time, I’d sit down and review what I had written in my notebook. Then I’d take my pen and start writing my thoughts onto a sheet of paper.

    Looking back at some of these sheets, my original drafts, they were really a mess. Written in long hand, with words crossed out and others written above the lines with arrows pointing to insertion points, they were downright sloppy.

    When I finally got what I wanted, I would drag out the typewriter and type it onto a piece of nice paper. More recently, I type it into the computer, which gives me a lot better control over keeping track of them.

    I still start my essays with cursive, and to make it even better, I tend to write with a fountain pen. (It’s what I’m using right now!) My buddy and I recently went and bought ourselves some new pens. Mine is a fine tipped Lamy pen, chrome blue in color, filled with pale blue ink! It’s a very smooth writing pen. I have to say, it looks and feels nice also.

    It’s appropriate, since today is National Fountain Pen Day. The first Friday of November, a day dedicated to the use of this style of pen and, to promote the act of writing. Put your thoughts down on a sheet of paper and in honor of the day, use a fountain pen! Hopefully you’ll enjoy the experience, I always do!