Cross Townsend Titanium Ball Point

I have always had a fascination with any tool that would make a mark on paper or canvas: pencils, chalk, crayons, pens, brushes, charcoal, anything. When I was nine years old I determined that I would be an artist and began practicing through all the various tools and media for hours every day - I was obsessed. So, my interest in writing instruments came very early. My first fountain pen (non-disposable) was a Pelikan 120 broad nib made for artists. In my teens and twenties I used Rapidograph technical drawing pens for detailed pen and ink drawings. Sometime in my thirties, my wife's grandfather sent me a birthday check of $25 and I found myself at the local stationer shopping for pens. I purchased a red torpedo-shaped Reddington rollerball to use in my new executive position, after seeing my superiors using their Mont Blancs, the price of which was and is outside of my budget. Not long after that, my good friend Bruce introduced me to his new Cross Townsend Titanium Ball Point Pen. This introduced me to a quality of writing instrument that seized me by the lapels and has hold of me ever since. The rest of the story of this great pen must be told: the color, the weight and the quality of writing from this pen led me to purchse one of my own. However, not long after that Bruce lost his while riding his bike. Knowing how much he valued that pen, I decided to give him mine. That was more than seven years ago. A couple of weeks ago, I had the joy of having lunch with him and his wife Helen and he informed me that he had a present for me. In fact he had been holding onto this present for the last seven years. I couldn't imagine what it would be and then he handed me a Cross pen box, informing me that he and the men from our former church's men's group had purchased that for me as an ordination gift. What a great gift and it writes just as well as I remembered.