Inky Scratchings

Circa 1954
The scarred, stained desks in our elementary classroom had inkwell holes in the top right corner. For a laugh, you could reach in and slowly let a couple of wiggling fingers emerge as if they were the forked tongue of a snake or captured beast. This cavity was the place to dump gum wrappers, sunflower seeds or other suitably sized objects. The no-man's-land under the hole became a toxic dump. Reach in at your own risk.

About grade 6 we began to use the ink wells for an ink bottle. The bottles were circular, with a bulge around the top that suspended them in the hole. The blue, black ink usually had crusty, knib-clogging sediment coagulating in the bottom layers. The pens were long, red-painted wood holders fitted with a metal sleeve that held the knib. Dip the knib, slowly draw it out against the bottles edge allowing excess ink to fall away. Begin your scratch marks, hence the name scratch pen, the root of some amazing Rorchach blots! If you scratched too hard the paper surface would break, leaving tiny bubbles to grow around your carefully crafted letter. A sudden tap left unsightly blotches, testimony to your carelessness. The expression 'the ink is running' had real meaning! A over-sized drop might secretly cling to the knib just waiting to flow in a little river down the page. Grab your blotter and try using the edge to head the flow off or use the 'splat' method from above. Liquid, physics theory was required for good blotting, coveted by all, but mastered by few. Our joined blob marks most surely coined the expression 'hen scratch' but at least a hen can scratch again, ours was irreversible. "Do it again please," was the refrain.

Left-handers like myself, armed with these pens, were a small tribe of physically challenged, puddle makers. Any attempt to push instead of pull the sharp pointed knib, resulted in immediate "hole digging". Most of us learned to curl our hand over our work and pull, consequently the whole arm lay above the work and the nose followed the arm, usually suspended a few millimetres above the paper. We were the great smudgers and masters of the blotter, since our sweaty hands dragged constantly over freshly, drying ink. My heart sings with the advent of the ballpoint. There should be an annual three minute silence for lefties who survived this ordeal.