Ol’ Margaret aided and abetted me in my inane pursuits for five and a half decades and I still ain’t got used to her not being around.  She was truly the wings above my wind.

That’s sufficient gloom for now, and I’m moved to confess a thing that vexed her regularly.  If she seated across the coffee bar from me whilst I was in the throes of cranking out epistles for an adoring public, she often complained about incoming flak.

I have no need for carbon paper to make a copy.  I apply pressure enough to curl the top sheet and produce a paper etching to the next.  The Mickey Mouse mechanical pencils that are pushed by office supply bidnesses today have lead that is somewhat thinner than a human hair, officially branded as 0.7mm.

“Zounds!” I sometimes proclaim when that lead stick snaps and flies away to the kitchen floor.  When Ol’ Margaret was in range of those projectiles, she’d put her hands across her cup and glare at me when she heard the snap.

In days of yore the Scripto pencil was my pick of the litter.  They were armed with 1.1mm ammunition, and that is the approximate caliber of bailing wire.  I didn’t miss them until they took off down the route of the dodo bird to extinction.  My search for one went unrewarded for a long, long time, and I broke two hundred miles of that 0.7 graphite in eighth inch increments.

Then, like a bolt from the blue, a cache of Scriptoes was discovered on the www.  My little heart leaped up like a sprig of Johnson grass!  I now have custody of a genuine uncirculated Scripto that is break resistant and shrink proof.  That acquisition will, no doubt, improve my literately eruptions, and I won’t be required to sweep up lead detritus every thirty minutes.  It don’t take much to gladden my heart.  And, now I can produce an additional etched copy of my creations.

The only ingredient missing in my recipe for complete and total bliss is to have Ol’ Margaret across the table enjoying her coffee and not being in the line of fire.

Odds against that scenario are overwhelming, but hope springs eternal in the human breast and like the old timers say, “Preaching ain’t over ‘til they start sangin’.”

Let me hear from you.

My phone number is 254-893-5063, my official postal address is: 333 W AYERS AVE – DE LEON TX 76444-2113, and you can e-mail chupp@charleschupp.com.