I, Pencil
By Leonard Read
I am a lead pencil — the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write.
Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that’s all I do.
You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery-more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, as a wise man observed, “We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.”
I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe; a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me — no, that’s too much to ask of anyone — if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an aeroplane or a mechanical dishwasher because-well, because I am seemingly so simple.
Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Especially when it is realised that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the USA. each year.
Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye — there’s some wood, lacquer, the printed labelling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser. Just as you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so is it impossible for me to name and explain all my antecedents. But I would like to suggest enough of them to impress upon you the richness and complexity of my background.
My family tree begins with what in fact is a tree, a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon. Now contemplate all the saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear used in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding. Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that went into their fabrication: the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes motors; the growing of hemp and bringing it through all the states to heavy and strong rope; the logging camps with their beds and mess halls the cookery and the raising of all the foods. Why, untold thousands of persons had a hand in every cup of coffee the loggers drink!
The logs are shipped to a mill in San Leandro, California. Can you imagine the individuals who make flat cars and rails and railroad engines and who construct and install the communication systems incidental thereto? These legions among my antecedents.
Consider the millwork in San Leandro. The cedar logs are cut into small, pencil-length slats less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness. These are kiln dried and then tinted for the same reason women put rouge on their faces. People prefer that I look pretty, not a pallid white. The slats are waxed and kiln dried again. How many skills went into the making of the tint and the kilns, into supplying the heat, the light and power, the belts, motors, and all the other things a mill requires? Sweepers in the mill among my ancestors? Yes
The "controversy" is a liberal tactic to shut everyone up -- they hate when we are reminded of 9/11. They want to close their eyes and make it go away. This brouhaha over the film is a shame on us, a shame on America. The walking on eggs is a travesty. One can only imagine how stunned the victims of the 9/11 attack would be if they knew that their deaths became the third rail. There is even controversy on the marketing of the film. Michele Malkin talks about this on Hot Air, raising
a fuss about the u93.org site 
![Kurdistan](http://<a href="http://northerniraq.info" title="northern iraq"><img src="http://northerniraq.info/northlogo.gif" width="135px" height="68px" alt="northern iraq"><br>northern iraq </a>){kind=link}
I agree with you completely. It is our duty as Americans to go see and support this movie. I saw it the first show on Friday and it was an honor and a privilege to go see it with a theater FULL of people. People think that the only people affected were people in NY, D.C. Well, I live in Albuquerque N.M. and everyone I know and have talked to support the movie and have gone to see it. You need to take your families to go see what true heroes look like and how they act. Not movie stars, athletes or musicians. True American Heroes who only thought about the rest of the country rather than about themselves.
Posted by: michie | Sunday, April 30, 2006 at 11:43 AM
My family and I will see this movie as soon as it shows in my area.
My sons will see this movie with me, so they will understand what REAL Hero's are.
Thank you for this blog, and thank GOD for the internet.
Posted by: awm06 | Sunday, April 30, 2006 at 02:59 PM
The whole "its too soon" mantra parroted by the Mainstream Media hacks is the perfect demonstration of how the left and their lackeys desire to infantalize the American public.
Posted by: associatecontributor1 | Sunday, April 30, 2006 at 07:34 PM
I said the same thing on my blog, America *needs* to see this film.
Posted by: kevin | Sunday, April 30, 2006 at 08:27 PM
Anyone who stays close to the true sources for the movie (which Greengrass did), can't go wrong.
This statement from a daughter of one of the heroes fis completely sympatico with A.S.: "This story is about standing up for what you believe in, never letting fear take over. And doing everything you possibly can until you can't." It slipped under
the MSM's radar.
Posted by: Jeremiah | Sunday, April 30, 2006 at 10:45 PM