Pens

Every time I’ve gone for a meal at the Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club I’ve walked out with one of their pens. The server brings one with your check, and when you hold it between your fingers—smooth and blue and sleek—you just can’t part with it, and into your jacket pocket it goes.

So, because I am a frequent patron of WaDuke, I’ve amassed quite the collection of their pens. Each one comes with a decent supply of blue ink, a tasteful gold band around its middle, and the Duke family crest inscribed upon it: the three birds surrounding the traditional chevron in the center, flourished with plumes and a soldier’s helmet, with the Duke family motto—“in adversis idem”—written on a banner beneath. It is the best pen I have ever laid eyes on and I use one almost every time I put ink on paper.

When I spent hours annotating books like “Ulysses” or “Absalom, Absalom!” or “2666,” I marked up these massive tomes using a pen from the WaDuke.

When I interviewed President Brodhead for a Chronicle column I used a pen from the WaDuke, and when I bounced around the Shooters dance floor reporting for Towerview I used a pen from the WaDuke.

When I took notes in my amazing English classes with Tom Ferraro, my adviser, I recorded his wisdom with a pen from the WaDuke.

When I parsed through the novel I wrote in classes with Joe Ashby Porter, I made all the strike-throughs and additions with a pen from the WaDuke.

When I sweated through every crossword in every Chronicle, I filled in the boxes using a pen from the WaDuke.

When I wrote letters to friends during my semester in Costa Rica, I sat outside for hours telling them of the palm trees and beaches and caipirinhas—and I wrote these letters using a pen from the WaDuke.

To get this many pens you need to make a lot of visits. I never stole bundles of them in a single grab—I’ve accumulated my collection one at a time, making the trip out to the beautiful Manor-style building for so many special occasions.

I first made the forage beyond those two majestic stone lions the night before my freshman orientation was to begin. I had just said goodbye to all my hometown friends—to my whole hometown life, really, and at the time it was the only life I knew. Scared shitless of what was to happen in the next few days, I stepped into the lobby of that grand hotel to find myself face-to-face with a sign with information about High Tea, a particularly ostentatious symbol of the Southern luxury that people tend to associate with Duke. The idea of “having” tea at a place a place called an “inn and golf club” was so foreign to me—I pictured white-jacketed waiters serving bite-sized immaculately constructed sandwiches, bottomless Mint Juleps, and pretty girls in sundresses sauntering across 18th hole of a golf course. I thought to myself, “Where am I going to college?”

But the place grew on me. My friends and I realized that the experience of putting on a tie and eating the filet mignon—which is very good, I may add—is simply worth the extra cost. Especially when that extra cost is billed to your food points.

And then the game changer: I turned 21, and all of a sudden food points could be spent on liquor as well as food. And—my God—is their drink menu fantastic! I spend my days dreaming of the Washington Duke Martini, that potent and princely concoction, a heavenly blend of Tanqueray Ten gin, vermouth, bleu -cheese-stuffed olives.

But what I’ll cherish most about the WaDuke is not the food or the drinks, but the friends who I’ve eaten with. The memories are myriad and priceless: walking from section at 7:00 a.m. after drinking all night only to binge on bacon, eggs and mimosas at the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet; giving grandiloquent toasts to my friends on their birthdays, and receiving equally grandiloquent toasts on mine; meeting a friend for a lunch that came complete with many, many glasses of white wine; or asking my favorite waiter for to surprise me—and out he came with a boilermaker, which is a shot of whiskey dropped in a dark lager and chugged. Can a man imbibe anything better?

And after each of these visits I would stroll through the lobby with one more pen to add to my collection. I’ll still be writing with these pens after I leave Duke, and when I click one open, I’ll think of every martini and every filet, and give a silent nod to my unforgettable times at this school.

Nate Freeman is a Trinity senior. He is a former University editor of The Chronicle.