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The Damsel hopes you’ll find this clip inspiring and touching in all the right kind of ways.

Happy 200th Birthday, Fryderyk Chopin, old school piano genius.  (painting by Eugene Delacroix, a close friend)

You were the Damsel’s first love. Yes, even before Brett Richards, who lived in town and had beautiful brown eyes and hair that waved down over his collar, there was you.

She’s sorry to confess her flirtations with Bach and Mozart, and even went steady with Brahms for a while, but you were her first. And you know how it is with first love.

But honestly, when you wrote those Etudes, what were you thinking? You were only 19, for crying out loud. They are so crazy hard they make the Damsel’s eyes bleed just looking at the score. And then there are those things you wrote when you were just a baby, only 25. How could you write something so achingly beautiful at such a young age? Could you possibly have lived enough of life yet to know that kind of emotion?

The Damsel would like to apologize for her unfaithfulness, at least on your birthday. She will be true.

But love, we gotta talk about those lavender gloves.

Yesterday at church, the speaker told the Parable of the Mexican Fisherman. It struck a chord with the Damsel, and not just because she was sitting on the organ bench. Apparently this story has been around a while, but this was the first time the Damsel had heard it. She thought it would make a great “field trip” post for the Old School. Pardon the length, and please comment if you know an attribution.

An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while. The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish?
The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The American then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time?
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, senor.”
The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution.
You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”
“But what then, senor?”
The American laughed and said “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”
“Millions, senor? Then what?”
The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

The most old-school kind of pen is a feather or quill pen, used for a thousand years with practically no change. A feather–often a goose feather, but many kinds were used–was trimmed with a diagonal point. This was dipped in an inkwell and then used to write with. The hollow channel inside the feather’s shaft drew up a bit of ink, but it still had to be dipped often–every few strokes.

In the 1700′s, people started experimenting with making a metal pen, but it was easier said than done. Ink often spurted out of the early attempts, and it seemed nothing was as good as a plain old feather. It wasn’t until 1884 that they were able to come up with something reliable.

Ever heard of Waterman pens? That was the name of the guy who patented it. There were several designs for filling the reservoir with ink, but the basic idea was the same: a metal nib connected to a shaft that held the ink reservoir.

The Damsel TOLD you she was old. She remembers people actually writing with these kind of pens. On purpose. This is what people wrote with in the olden days when they wanted to be fancy.

She’d rather not remember a certain bad moment when she spilled a bottle of ink on the carpet when she was a kid. She must have tripped over her platform shoes.

Ball point pens were invented not so long ago in the overall scheme of writing implements. They finally got it right in the 1950′s. It was tricky to get the ink just right. Too thin, and it would run out all over the place. Too thick and it would clog. But after a few bad starts, ball point pens took hold.

Ever heard of a Bic pen? Just kidding. The Damsel knows you have heard of a Bic. But did you know it got its name from its original maker, a French baron named Bich? There are  14,000,000 basic Bic pens sold every day.

The next time the Damsel sees a goose, she will try to arrange for it to lose a feather, because trimming a quill would make a pretty interesting Old School post, don’t you think?

So, today’s class is on the invention of the sewing machine.

From the time people were running around in loincloths, there’s been such a thing as sewing. But for centuries, it was a time-intensive process. You know the drill…you put thread through the eye of a needle, and then draw the needle through layers of material, up and down, joining the material with the thread.

Tailors and young ladies alike worked hard to sew tiny, even stitches. But you can imagine that even the best, fastest seamstresses (The Damsel was going to coin the word “seamsters” in an effort to be PC but no. Just no.) couldn’t sew very fast.

In the 1800′s lots of inventions were being made, and several people tried to make a mechanical thingy for sewing. None of them worked very well. One sort of worked, and the inventor was almost killed by wild, angry tailors who feared he’d put them all out of work. He gave up.

Inventing sewing machines can be a deadly business. Tailors have all sorts of pointed things, sharp things. Just picturing wild, angry tailors gives the Damsel the shivers.

Along came Elias Howe. He worked and worked on a machine, but it just wouldn’t work right. The Damsel thinks he was pretty much crazy from all the trying because one night he dreamed he was being boiled by cannibals. They danced around the cookpot, brandishing strange spears with small holes in their tips.

When he woke up, the answer suddenly dawned on him. Instead of having the thread hole in the end, like it had always been, the hole needed to be in the pointed tip. Like the spears.

Finally, the machine worked, and wow, what a difference in the time it takes to create a garment.

The Damsel is grateful because she looks terrible in a loincloth.