The Democracy of a Pencil
On weekends I have more time to read. Good thing because I began a doorstopper of a biography about Henry David Thoreau by Laura Dassow Walls. It might be more Thoreau than I bargained for. There has always been something compelling about Walden and “On Civil Disobedience” that reminds me of my 20s. It was a good time to drop out or become a rebel. I’ve come back to Walden again and again and each time I feel anxious—there’s got to be more to this story. But, there isn’t. He lived by himself for a few years “off the grid” and then that was it. I guess I wanted it to be about something other than simplicity. Anyway, the opening chapters of the biography explains that Thoreau’s parents, though modestly middleclass, made their money from—wait!: pencils. I know, random. In today’s economy I cannot imagine someone making a fortune from the humble pencil. But that’s the beauty of it! It isn’t humble—the manufacturing of pencils revolutionized the worker, the intel...