Where Did You Acquire That Funny-Looking Pen?

The year was 1954. While attending Radhost and Hostyn schools, I always seemed to be a little “different” than the normal bunch of school kids. I always seemed to do different things, come up with and bring objects to school that were different. One example was the ball-point pen. These were laidback country schools taught by Sisters or Catholic Nuns, as we call them now. A ball-point was unheard of at that time and we always used fountain pens or ink pens. They were very messy. One had to stick them into a glass container of ink and draw liquid ink into the pen. There were many incidents of spilled ink bottles, dripping ink pens, and inksoaked shirt pockets.

One day I happened to bring a “ball-point” pen to school and immediately, I became the center of attention of the whole school. By saying the whole school, I mean all of two classrooms.

I could uncap that ball-point pen, shake it, toss it around from person to person and no one got any ink on them. They all marveled at how a little ball on the tip of this pen could write letters and work so neatly.

How did I acquire this writing marvel? Let me share the rest of the story. My family farm was located across the road from a beer joint known as Arthur Dobbins’Place. I was sent there regularly to get a loaf of bread on my bicycle. Besides bread, beer and gasoline, he also sold ice cream. Most of the ice cream came on a stick packaged in a paper bag covering and included the “sicle” brand. There was the popcicle, dreamsicle, fudgesicle and the cho-cho, which was my favorite. I guess to further business and sales, these paper bag coverings each had a coupon on them. If a person saved a bunch of these coupons, he could send them off by mail and receive all sorts of gifts. There was a catalog of gifts available and I would look through it and dream of all the good stuff I could get. Apen and pencil set caught my eye and I decided to save all my coupons for this special gift. This was a somewhat more expensive gift than the others and required 500 coupons to be sent in. It was almost impossible for a farm kid to acquire that vast amount of coupons; but, I was lucky. Each time I went to get bread at Dobbins’ place I would check all the trash cans and search the grounds around the store for discarded ice cream bags. After a few months, I counted the coupons and, sure enough, I had enough coupons to order my gift. I was too young to do so myself, but Mom helped me send a shoe box full of coupons all the way to New York.

When the teacher at school asked me where I got such a unique pen and pencil set, I proudly told her “New York City.”