Peanuts Begins by Charles Schulz for February 12, 2022

no recollection of me in grade school sitting behind a pig-tailed girl

My elementary school was built ca 1900 and had the original heavy wooden desks with ink-well holders. Some kids put their Elmer’s glue bottle in the holder. Some kids put their Kleenexes there instead. The desks had wooden tops that lifted up and were so deep that every month or so the teachers would make us clean them out during class time.

That is what you sometimes get when you open your mouth without thinking.

I remember our desks in grade school had inkwells, and the girls had pigtails but the inkwells had no ink, we used pencils anyway!

My first grade class had the wooden desks with “inkwells” (empty). We moved, and I went to a brand-new school starting in 3rd grade. Not only did we not have traditional desks, but there were tables that seated 2 students per table, and we had “tote trays” that slid on a rack under the table so we could take our “desk” from classroom to classroom. It was also Open Concept, which I despised (no walls between classrooms, just low bookshelves; if the room next to us was having a test, OUR class had to be silent).

And (but don’t quote me) I think inkwells went out long before the ’60s. So, how does she know what this means?

His Grandfather deserved it.

It’s not often that you see the word “the” shortened anymore. Maybe she’s related to Rufus or Joel in Gasoline Alley. I wonder if it sounds different when spoken.

I’m old enough to remember desks with holes where the inkwells USED to be.

RIP Charles SchulzNovember 26, 1922 to February 12, 2000

When I was in the seventh grade in 1956, our desks had inkwells. We had to buy a bottle of ink and the old-fashioned pens. I remember doing exercises so that we would know how to use them. Our teacher was very much against ball point pens.

When I was in 5th grade, I went to a very small school and the desks still had a place for inkwells. By then we were using pencils.

In the days when this was first published, there would have been a hole in the upper right corner of the desk where the inkwell would have sat. This hole would likely have been empty, as inkwells would have been out of use for well over a decade. Present gag notwithstanding, Violet’s actual reaction would likely have been, “What’s an inkwell?”

SPOCK: For the record, how do we describe him? Pure mentality? Force of intellect? Embodied energy? Superbeing? He must be classified, sir.KIRK: God of war, Mister Spock.SPOCK: I hardly find that fitting.KIRK: Then a small boy, and a very naughty one at that.SPOCK: It will make a strange entry in the library banks.KIRK: Then he was a very strange small boy. One the other hand, he was probably doing things comparable to the same mischievous pranks you played when you were a boy.SPOCK: Mischievous pranks, Captain?KIRK: Yes. Dipping little girls’ curls in inkwells. Stealing apples from the neighbors’ trees. Tying cans on… (Spock looks at him strangely) Forgive me, Mister Spock. I should have known better. (From The Squire of Gothos, Star Trek, TOS)

Seriously? Even for the 1950s – Inkwell?

I attended the first grade in a one-room schoolhouse in Dresden, MO for the 1959-1960 school year. One teacher taught all six grades with no teacher’s aide to help her. There were two outhouses next to the playground in the back. Field trips involved all six grades at the same time. I remember once we went to a dairy to see how milk was pasteurized and bottled. This was in the days when milk still came in bottles. Anyway, our desks had the vacant inkwells.

Like many of you my old heavy wooden school desks in NYC had the inkwell hole in the upper right corner and most of us used fountain pens in the early fifties. Ink stains on fingers and shirt pockets were a constant. Does anyone else remember those diamond shaped bottles of Quink? I also remember when they came out with those little cartridges which held a tiny amount of ink.

Plus, no inkwells today.

Did you expect a positive reaction to that statement, CB?

BTW, why bother to do that if her hair is already black?

Thank goodness inkwells aren’t a thing anymore. (Not me as a Gen Z kid never seeing one in my entire life…)