I don’t remember the first time I held a crayon. I don’t remember the first time I held a pencil. But I have early memories of learning to write. We didn’t have preschool back then, at least not in our town. So, it must have been in kindergarten when I grappled with a thick, wooden, heavy barrel shaped like my beloved Lincoln log. I tapped into an ancestral caveman instinct in my fist—wrapping five fingers around the black-lacquered finish that accentuated teeth marks and signs of decay.
The thick, blunt black tip showed huge, promising bold, giant lines before they even touched the paper. The intoxicating aroma of mimeographed worksheets, still damp from the reproduction process, thrills the nostrils and creates an intimate relationship between that aroma and achievement. I approached the challenges by tracing familiar objects like houses, oranges, and cats, as well as dotted lines, circles, and curves.
Somewhere along the way, I learned to grip the pencil properly. We were taught to lay the pencil down on the table, with the writing tip pointed at us, pinch it near the tip with our thumb and our “pointer,” and then bring it back to the web of our hand. That’s when I discovered that the weight and length shifted the center of gravity away from my fingers, causing the pencil tip to wobble wildly in the air. A few of my colleagues were taught proper grip by pulling a cotton ball under their pinky and ring fingers, which forced them to focus on the tripod.
I dragged the instrument across the paper, creating broad, dark, smoky lines like a charcoal sketch. The large size of the pencil encouraged me to make large, sweeping strokes. My “wrong-handed” friends accidentally tarnished their efforts as their fleshy hands smeared their hard work with silver smoke—a poll tax levied by a right-handed world. Poor chumps.
When I mastered the “jumbo” pencil, I already looked at the pencils used by older children—a smooth, golden-yellow lacquered, hexagonal beauty that you leave behind when you put it down. It was bounded by a FerulA metal band that holds the salmon pink eraser, which Rub out Your mistakes are better than the mafia laundryman.
These were the holy grail of writing instruments for a grammar school kid. And teachers praised their excellence, instructing parents to “be sure to get #2 lead pencils” because of the steady stream of standardized tests in our future. Grading sheet scanners work by shining light through the paper or reflecting light off of it. It looked for dark marks that would block or absorb light.
The #1 pencil was very soft and smudged very easily. #3 and #4 pencils held a very hard and sharp point, but they produced very light grays. Early machines didn’t see their faintest mark, blanking out the answer and adding to the student’s mountain of frustration. But the #2 pencil sat precisely in the sweet spot. Goldilocks would have been thrilled.
I’ll admit that I find it more than a little uncomfortable to think about the domain with the greatest influence on my intellectual development—the one that promoted meritocracy—rewarding compromise. Not excellence. Not excellence. Not even specialization. Just… balance.
The system didn’t reward the darkest marks or sharpest accuracy—it rewarded bowing to the machine. A scar that doesn’t cut, won’t disappear. That was, by all accounts, safely in the middle. Not too bold, not too faint – just right. A regulative device of harsh assessment built on a nursery rhyme about a spoiled little girl’s sense of entitlement.
It was an arbitrary standard that ruled with an iron fist, as if it descended from a royal line, or thought it was Nick Soap.
But fiction ran deeper than slick machines and institutionally structured grading sheets. Even the tool itself carries a cool fable. We called them “lead” pencils, even though no one alive at the time—or since—used one with lead. it was graphite– always was. We were told that the pencils contained an ingredient that every kid knew could thwart Superman’s X-ray vision, though it was a trivial misnomer that just stuck – familiar enough to fix and effective enough to get it. No wonder they were knocked off so easily.
It arose from an honest mistake centuries ago, but after the discovery, the error was allowed to stand. The prevailing sentiment seemed to be: Me, who cares?
The name became familiar. Textbooks used it. The teachers repeated. Manufacturers print it on packages. Modifying it offers little practical benefit, although it requires effort to change. So, the fallacy survived—not because it was true, but because it was convenient.
Because accuracy was not the point. There was agreement.
In obedience to the system, everyone used the same words, followed the same rules, and trusted the same unseen mechanism, just as the members of a chamber orchestra dutifully obeyed the accordion. If everyone agreed to call it lead, then it was lead. If everyone agrees that #2 was the best, then it’s the best. The religion of consensus discourages anyone from asking whether the standard has any meaning beyond the necessary machines. And once applied, the “Heretic” label is hard to shake.
The longer I’ve lived, the more familiar that pattern has become – values built not on reality, but on conformity. Not on what is true, but on what is easiest to process, easiest to measure, easiest to scan
And the modern Church has its own silent gallery of such fictions—strange traditions no one remembers to begin with, yet they soldier on anyway because they were not familiar enough to right the wrong and effective enough to receive it. We pretend that the frequency of keeping communion was copied from a discovered 1St– Church Calendar of the Century Title “Corinth Overcomers Fellowship Connection“We still follow the same printed order of service in the Bulletin week after week, though the reasons for half the items are lost in some long-forgotten committee vote, no one bothered to record. The prevailing sentiment continues throughout time: Me, who cares?
We still pass the peace with those stiff handshakes, awkward side-hugs, and defensive “I’m-not-gay” three-slap-and-release back pats that men deploy in greeting, even though the early church New Testament commands greeted each other with a holy kiss—a real kiss. On the cheek? On the lips? No one can say for sure. So, we safely laundered the bold original into something middle of the road. You know—so Goldilocks wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.
If everyone agrees to call it tradition, then it is tradition. Accuracy was not the point. There was agreement. And the covenant, once sanctified, rarely needs defending—it does so by itself.
I’m still checking pencil #2 out of reflex. they are known They pass through the scanner without complaint. They earn the silent approval of the machine. But often, I think of the wild, unexpected weight of that first fat pencil in my little hand—how it wobbled and demanded something bolder than balance.
And I can’t help but wonder what we lost when we decided that “just right” was good enough. Or worse, it was true.
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This post was Previously published on Dan McAnally’s blog.
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