You Wouldn’t Say, But These Pencils Are Really 50 Years Old (or older)

You wouldn’t say, but these pencils are really 50 years old or older. 

Pencils. Colored pencils. Those humble little sticks of wood and graphite that scribble and color across our lives, often forgotten at the bottoms of drawers or chewed upon during moments of profound (or absent) thought. 

But you wouldn’t say, would you, that some pencils, my coloring pencils, to be exact, are survivors of history itself. 

Yes, the pencils in question are over 50 years old, and frankly, it’s aging better than I am.

Let me introduce you to these timeless tools of expression. They’re not some fancy vintage set encased in a mahogany box with gold trim; no, these are everyday warriors. 

I think they were the first pencils I ever got. They’ve survived the 70s, the invention of the Internet and the time my cat tried to bury them in the litter box for reasons I still don’t understand. I don’t ask questions anymore.

For some strange reason these particular graphite wands dodged the trash, after I got many others, I never really touched them again. 

These pointy creativity spears have lived through eras. They’ve drawn houses and flowers in my teenage years and after that watched the other newer pencils being used. 

You want to know what is so awesome about these colored sticks? 

Modern pencils nowadays are often all soft wood and cheap graphite, snapping at the slightest pressure. But these? I don’t know if they were made from a special breed of oak or blessed by monks, but they’re practically indestructible. 

And the smell. Yes, the smell! Is there anything more nostalgic than the scent of an ancient pencil freshly sharpened? It’s like a time machine in fragrance form, whisking me back to third grade spelling tests and doodles of disproportionate horses.

But here’s the thing: these pencils are more than just coloring instruments. They’re history encapsulated. They’ve seen disco, outlasted flip phones and fads and somehow wound up here, in my hand, still ready to create.

So, yes, you wouldn’t say it, but these pencils are 50 years old, or older. They’ve been sharpened, dulled, sharpened again, and pressed into service for half a century, carrying the weight of my life one scrawl at a time. If that’s not art, I don’t know what is.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think one of them deserves a sharpener. It’s earned it.