Meet Kirk Kandle, Roots & Jones Storyteller!
Kirk Kandle
Storyteller for Roots & Jones
To say that Kirk Kandle has ink in his blood is not hyperbole. Kirk Kandle, quite literally, has ink coursing through his veins. He represents four generations of printers. He, his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather all worked as pressmen, set type, made plates, trimmed and bound books. They all breathed in enough of the incidental vapor of printing ink to conclude that traces of those pigments and solvents are part of who they were, and who Kirk is today. (Ok, maybe they were all just a bit intoxicated.)
Anyway, Kirk was drawn away from the printing trade early in his twenties and used his earnings in graphic arts to pay his way through college, having fallen in love with the children of every printer’s devil – words. On graduation, Kirk’s twin sister presented him with a sterling silver fountain pen that he carried in his shirt pocket for three decades as a writer at The Courier-Journal and Louisville Times.
In the digital era, with newspapers in steep decline, Kirk found opportunities elsewhere, as a communicator in health care and as an advocate for bicycling. His passion for cursive writing as a relief from constant screen time runs parallel to his love of human-powered transportation over automobiles.
Recently, Kirk ran across a handcrafted wood pen, a gift from his mom some 15 years ago. It was a handsome fountain pen, but sadly it would never reliably deliver ink to paper. Imagine his frustration! But never underestimate the power of serendipity to take hold when you least expect it. One winter day, while browsing shops in Louisville’s Nulu neighborhood, Kirk found Ryan Jones’s calling card on a pen display at Clayton & Crume leather goods shop. He emailed Ryan to arrange a meeting at Quill’s Firehouse coffee shop. Ryan helped rehab the pen. And there lies your happy ending, dear reader.
But wait. Not so fast. Let’s take a closer look at that word, “serendipity.” Are you familiar with the term? Do you know its origins and what it means? Kirk does. And he wants to share it with you here:
Serendipity
The word “serendipity” was coined in 1754 by Horace Walpole. He drew it from an English variation of the Persian fairy tale “The Three Princes of Serendip,” which was about three princes who always made discoveries that they were not looking for on their adventures.
I wasn’t looking for a fix for my wooden fountain pen when I ran across Ryan’s Roots & Jones business card. I was looking for a fine leather notebook cover. But just like those three princes in the fairy tale, I found treasure on the way to a treasure. That’s Serendipity.
As a result of that first meeting with Ryan at Quill’s in the year of the waning ‘RONA 2021, I found a fix for a broken pen and since then I’ve added three of Ryan’s amazingly handcrafted writing instruments to my already outsized collection.
That should just about bring us up to date but be sure to return here for more about subjects such as analog relief from digital toil, writing in cursive, the lost art of sending personal letters, cooking from scratch, and much more.
Kirk Kandle lives in Louisville, KY with his wife Ashley and their dog Wrigley. Send your story of analog relief in this digital age to kirk@rootsandjones.com