Chit Chat # 29

My Father's Pen
Bob Chen

The things I got from my father's place were junks in my sister's eyes; but I think differently. I paid $89 to ship a box of photo albums from Cincinnati to Torrance. My parents shipped them from Hong Kong to Cincinnati earlier, and some were from Shanghai, before Hong Kong. I also collected many writing instruments. In my father's last few years, he switched to ball-point and roller-ball pens, since his eye sight was failing. I found only one dried-out ink pen, a Parker 51 no less. I recognized it from the good old days in Hong Kong, when we, the children were using Parker 21's. I believe they came from Shanghai in 1947 or before since my father signed some old Chinese bank-notes in fountain pen or soft brush pen around that time. Figure 1 depicts one of each. The English version could be done by that pen. I cleaned the pen, and got it into
working order. To try it out, I copied a calligraphy given to me by my maternal grandfather in '71. How do I know the year? I found an earlier letter from my grandfather shortly after my graduation from Illinois in '63. He was eighty-two then. Figure 2 shows the calligraphy done by the pen, with my lousy hand-writing. It tells us a lot about time's arrow moving only in one direction.

The poem in the calligraphy by my grandfather was given to him in '21 when the poet was eighty-five years old. My grandfather passed away at a ripeful age of 95. The ages of all people involved converted to '99 are the following:
(1) The poet, 85 in '21, 78+85=163 in '99 if and only if he's alive.
(2) My grandfaher, 90 in '71, 28+90=118 in '99 iff alive.
(3) My father, 33 in '47, 52+33=85 in '99 iff alive; but he passed away 12/18/98.
(4) Myself, 17 in '59, 40+17=57 in '99 still alive.

Irrespect of their accomplishments in life, the age is the only factor governs all equally. My grandfather, and his friend, lived in an earlier time, and lives were less stressful. Even without modern medicine, they lived very long. My father, started early, the wear and tear allowed him only eighty-four years. I, myself, lead a life that is more stressful than my father's, shall be lucky to reach eighty-four.

With this pessimistic view, it becomes apparent that all Lighters should try to make the 40th re-union in Toronto this coming August. You see, chances are the 50th in the year 2009 will be too far away for some of us. I'm taking all kinds of hypertension, diabetes, pills already. My father never took any pills, and one massive stroke took him away in twelve days. Lighters, please do think about the plea I'm making, and plan to come to the 40th re-union.