Were anyone to ask, I would characterize myself as a modern woman with old-fashioned tendencies.
This would explain, perhaps, my new-found love affair with my computer, coupled with my tendency to write by hand with one of the oldest of writing implements, the pencil.
Writing with a pencil was one of my first-grade school accomplishments.
Sharpening same, alas, was not.
For years, pencil sharpeners left me almost prostrate with fear.
I would use my fingernail, a knife, a little pocket sharpener – anything rather than have to get up in class, walk to the back of the room, stick my pencil in that mechanical monster and turn the handle.
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As a result, I never had a really sharp pencil with which to write.
Over the years, I have learned that the best way to conquer a fear is to meet it head-on. The thing that is feared is seldom as bad as the fear itself.
When I was 16, I got over my fear of the pencil sharpener in a very simple way: I was forced into using one. It happened when I worked for the Times-Journal in Fort William, Ont., as a summer student. That meant I did some reporting, some proofreading and other duties. One day, one of those other duties was to sharpen the editor’s pencils.
I had to do a good job; the editor was none other than Sheila Copps’ uncle, and Sheila comes by her temper and her strident voice honestly.
The other day, I learned that pencils are among the oldest writing instruments: in ancient Rome, scribes wrote on papyrus, an early form of paper, with a thin metal rod called a stylus. Other early styluses were made of lead; today, we still call the core of a pencil the “lead” though it is made from graphite.
Graphite came into use in the 1500s in England. It left a darker mark than lead but was softer and more brittle and required a holder. At first, sticks of graphite were wrapped in string; later, they were inserted into wooden sticks. The modern pencil was born!
Pencils are useful objects. They can write in zero gravity, upside down and under water.
A single pencil can write 45,000 words or draw a line 50 kilometres long.
That would take a lot of sharpening.
It makes me glad I’ve switched from a mechanical sharpener to an electric one.
The only problem is, that makes for one more thing I can’t do when the power goes off.
