One of the things I appreciated most before I retired was meeting American officers who, like me, used fountain pens and loved doing so. There was, of course, Diana Negroponte, who favored black ink, and there was Ron Post, a former PAO, who owned a fabulous Montblanc set. And then there was Edgar S., whom I often saw and conversed with in the old smoking gazebo. Edgar was the only person I knew who owned an expensive, portable ink carrier. He was into Noodler's Ink, specifically Legal Lapis.
One day Edgar hobbled into the smoking gazebo with a bandaged foot. I asked him what'd happened, and he said that his toe had to be surgically removed. He woke up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain and had to be brought to hospital. He was diabetic.
That was the last time I saw Edgar. The American Services Branch later informed me that he'd passed away, which, I felt, was too sudden, but they refused to give me details despite my insistence that he was my friend. They notified his family, and his teenage son arrived from the U.S. to pick up his belongings and accompany his cadaver home.
I actually suspected that Edgar took his own life because of the grim prospect of losing his limbs a little at a time. I know many Americans who are like that; they would rather give up the ghost than live a life of debilitation and be a potential burden to themselves and to their loved ones.
I hope I was wrong, but now I shall never know.
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