Manufacturer of Pen Folds

Okay, so Dangermouse's sidekick has done nothing to get mentioned in a blog header, and neither is Sanford North America completely folding, but it is closing its Wisconsin operation moving the main work to Murvull Maryville , TN. Now, I've got nothing against eastern Tennessee -- I spent one very nice summer and part of autumn in O'KRIDGE, and visited most of the surrounding communities while my seester and I tried (with differing degrees of success) to sell very costly items door-to-door. Silly me, I lacked the knack... maybe it had something to do with the fact that I'm uncomfortable talking to strangers.

But I digress.

It seems a gigantic pity to move the manufacturing of, IMHO, the finest American writing implement away from its historic home city. I realize that the business must take a pragmatic approach, and I hope they at least see to it that the Janesville site maintains a respectable little museum to its nibs.

My own home town has its little tie to this pen, as well. According to the lore (which, I am told, is supported by documents, but I have yet to study them) at Monmouth College, one of the founding (or very early) members of a women's fraternity started at Good Ole Em Cee eventually married George Parker, subsequently persuading him to incorporate the organization's arrow symbol as part of the corporate image, hence the lovely arrow clip on all their best (non-government) pens.

Change is inevitable, especially in a business which wants to keep itself afloat (do you know anybody who feels the urge to take up writing with a fountain pen? Tell 'em to buy a new "51". Go ahead. You know you want one, too. Shiny pretty... dammit, they just don't sell as well as the 99 cent gel pens, these days). I'm just resentful that the cows 'n' cornfields region is losing another few hundred jobs and the prestige of having this great product manufactured on our black-soil land.