Contributor Biographies #1

These biographies are shown in the order in which they were received. Use Previous and Next at the top and bottom of each page to move through them, or pick a name from the list of all biographies.

Berry in Gilroy

I have been interested in pens for as long as I can remember, and have actively been buying them for the past 40 years. I share this passion with my sister, so it must have been a gene thing.I was bred, born, and raised in San Francisco, and lived there for 25 years until I finished school. I watched S.I. Hayakawa come to S. F. State, and managed to make it through the riots. I got my credential there, and have been teaching continuously for 29 years. Now I'm primarily Special Ed, at a county residential school for gang-involved sociopaths. It makes for an interesting work day!

My first fountain pen of memory was a Sheaffer transparent cartridge pen around 1960, then a dark blue Parker 45 Flighter which I still have. I got through college with Rapidographs and a Pelikan 120, and was, and still am, a big fan of PaperMate and Parker ball pens. I have an obsession for PaperMate Capris, and enjoy finding them all over the U.S.

I am 51, married, and have a soon to be 13 year old son. My two four-legged children are a 7 year old yellow Lab, and a 2 year old Golden Retriever. I rarely can go anywhere without them being by my side or at my feet. Other interests are going to grad school for the next 5 years, and commercial aviation. I have to be one of the top 10 DC-6&7 fans in the world.

My pen collection numbers about 300, and is half vintage, half post-60s. Many of my pens came from a shop that AnnMarie at Ink Palette was once the manager of in San Francisco before she ascended, and became, the Ink Queen of Kentucky. I have about 115 bottles of ink in 80 different colors, but I think My is going to pass me. The ink acquisitions are mostly due to AnnMarie's knowledge and excellent service at Ink Palette. I enjoyed visiting with her again last week at the San Francisco Pen Show. If you would like to see a sample of something inkwise, e-mail me for a swatch. I probably have it around here somewhere!

My all time favorite pen is the Vac Parker "51", and favorite latest new pen is my Krone "Lava" Hyperbole from the pen show last week. That will soon change however, when Jeff Peirce calls to tell me my new blue Hyperbole has arrived from Italy.

I truly enjoy reading, writing, and posting about pens, and wish I had more time for the snail list, a wonderful thing!

Best Regards,

Berry in Gilroy, CA

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Miles Q Turner

I am happy to address this gathering of the FPAA (Fountain Pen Addicts Association).

My name is Miles Q. Turner. I am a 45 year old high school English and Theatre teacher living in the Land of Lincoln fifty miles south of Chicago near the city of Kankakee in a small town called Manteno.

I was born in France, graduated high school in 1973 in Thailand, undergraduate degree at Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri in 1976, Master's degree at Olivet Nazarene University in Kankakee in 1987. Other than my present tenure of 20 years at Bradley-Bourbonnais Comm. H.S. I have worked as a concrete inspector on a hydro-electric dam, a teacher of English as a foreign language to the Royal Thai Navy, a movie theater projectionist and manager, summer camp counselor, a water tower painter, actor and technical director on a Mississippi riverboat, a traveling book salesman, and a water purification plant operator. At my school, besides teaching the regular English curriculum, I also teach a course of Shakespeare’s plays and the senior Advanced Placement English Literature class. In addition I design, build, and direct all the school musicals and plays as well as being the English Dept. chairman and Drama Club sponsor. (It's a wonder I have time for snails!)

I am married to a wonderful woman who teaches elementary music in our town and is the organist and choir director of our church and sings alto. I have two children. My son is 17 and plays the bassoon, piano, bass guitar, and sings tenor. My daughter, 12, plays French horn, piano, and sings soprano. Me, I play (by ear, unlike the rest who read music) guitar, banjo, dulcimer, and a bit of anything else I can get my hands on. And, yes, I sing too…bass! We are a family quartet!

Other than fountain pens, which are a new passion for me in just this last year, I enjoy fishing, and reading. I read mostly fantasy (Anne McCaffrey, Piers Anthony), mysteries (Ellis Peters, Bruce Alexander), and westerns (Louis L’amour). Not very deep, but enjoyable and escapist after teaching all day.

I have a web page where, if you like, you can view not only pictures of myself and my family, but also my fountain pen collection as well.

The latest acquisition to my modest collection of 18 pens has been my dream pen, the Pelikan M-1000, with a very flexible F nib.

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David Kaplan

Greetings, and I wish Pentrace the best of luck. Here is my bio.

I am a 45 year old Professor of Education at the University of Delaware specializing in education statistics and policy. I am married with two lovely daughters.

My serious interest in fountain pen collecting began in January 2000 when I was searching the web to find a new fountain pen. At that time I discovered the world of vintage pen collecting. After some surfing, I came across Geoff Berliner's page. Coincidently, I had to take a brief trip to NYC for a meeting and stopped in to talk to him. To his great credit, he wouldn't sell me anything. He strongly suggested I get a book and learn, then go to a show. Incidently, the folks at FPH said the same thing when I went down to visit them the same day. Well... after some study I was ready to hit a show - Philly 2000. In the meantime, I uncovered my first vintage pen - a Parker 51 - in an Antique store. I was thrilled. A couple of weeks later in the same store, I uncovered a Onyx Waterman Patrician. I was hooked. Presently, I have been to two shows, and I own about 20 vintage pens and 8 modern pens. I prefer vintage and would like to focus on vacs, Waterman ripples, and Dorics. Oh yes, my first modern pen was a Pelikan 600. I love it.

The picture is of me giving a presentation in Uppsala, Sweden, March 2000.

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David Mason

I am a feral child, seventh son of a seventh son & born under a bad sign, abandoned by my parents at birth to be reared in the wild woods of the frozen North Minnesota tundra by a family of kindly yet impoverished and nearsighted possums. They instilled in me a fierce respect for the truth. Many moons ago I acquired a B.S. (appropriate) in psychology from FSU which over the years has only served to confirm my initial impression that people are the strangest critters in the woods. Due to my timberland heritage, I have had a long interest in writing, language,virtually anything pertaining to the representation of human thought as evidenced by little squiggles on re-composed tree corpse fragments.

Following about eighteen zillion "careers", I'm now a freelance writer, primarily boring legal stuff, and a dabbler in antiques, paleography, ink voodoo and just plain foolishness. I'm 42 years old, genteelly decaying in the swamps (er, "wetlands") of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, that little doodad on your map which keeps the Chesapeake Bay from falling into the Atlantic Ocean. I started using, then collecting fountain pens through an interest in calligraphy and drawing and I'll stop when they pry my cold dead fingers from around 'em. Picture of me forthcoming as soon as draw one, haven't checked the mirror for years....

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Len Provisor

I'm 58 next month, married 35 years and just became a first-time grandfather 6 months ago.

I live in very rural northern Illinois, about 100 miles from Janesville, WI. Moving to the open countryside thirteen years ago after living in the near Chicago area, I had it with traffic jams and constant parking tickets. My office is in my home,overlooking rolling prairies and woodlands, my local clients are all within 10-15 miles.

I'm self-employed in the advertising promotions business, selling corporations executive gifts and awards, including fine writing instruments, which lead me into serious pen collecting 30 years ago.

My hobbies included collecting vintage advertising ink blotters with nice graphics, especially pen and ink advertising. Vintage advertising is a peek into the past. The products, people and themes from up to one hundred years ago are historically fascinating. I stopped counting at 3,000. I liked them so much I started to print them in the same manner as 50-75 years ago, now selling them to many pen friends, dealers and manufacturers world-wide. Among my customers are OMAS, Parker, Waterman, FPH and Conway Stewart. This is a fun diversion to my business, as is making reproduction models of vintage Parker Pen aircraft. I thought I'd only make a few for myself and some friends, but it has "taken off" very well. More models will follow next year.

I mostly attend fountain pen shows at Washington, D.C., Chicago, Houston and Ohio. My collection is about 80% vintage, 10% modern, 10% of unknown origin or species. I look for "character" in a pen. Mottled or rippled hard rubber in endless variations, stubs and italics that have talked many languages, nicely engraved names, initials or cryptic messages. I scribble, doodle and copy vintage Italian and Irish calligraphy, having no idea what I'm writing...looks so nice and is good practice for English. Sterling silver gives my heart a "thump", vintage advertising ephemeral and ink bottles are all squeezed into my Pen Room, where my favorite cat, sometimes called "Sapphire Nose" for an obvious reason, will squeeze into the smallest places for a nap.

Early Americana writing equipment and accessories fascinate me, having some traveling inkwells identical to those carried by George Washington, an ivory memo pad and a survey tool kit identical to Thomas Jefferson's, an 1840's wooden inkwell identical to one used by Abraham Lincoln, a dip pen made from an Elm tree that once stood before Independence Hall exactly where Washington, Jefferson and Franklin walked, a desk inkwell base made from a piece of the decking of the U.S.S. Constitution "Old Ironsides" taken during reconstruction in the 1930's. This stuff has "character". A story with every piece, that's what I especially like in vintage. I may write a "fantasy story" about some of these ephemeral characters with "character". I have the all the "characters", I just have to day dream up an interesting story for you to enjoy. So there you have my problems, I day dream and play with blotters, pens and planes.

Links:

www.contentville.com
www.ragnarokpress.com
www.johnnealbooks.com

and the most important one of all... www.realbeer.com

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