El Avance del Trabajo Final

Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo
Specialized English (for economists) IV

Professor Ty Hadman

I, Pencil
by Leonard E. Read

RP.1  

I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write. (NOTE: " My many ingredients are assembled, fabricated, and finished by Eberhard Faber Pencil Company.)

RP.2

Writing is both my vocation (profession) and my avocation (hobby); that's all I do.

RP.3

You may wonder why I should write a genealogy (family history). 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 (indifferent, without a thought, not considered seriously or without importance) by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background (history). This supercilious (arrogant) attitude relegates (assigns) me to the level of the commonplace (ordinary). This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, the wise G. K. Chesterton observed, "We are perishing for want (lack) of wonder (to think curiously), not for want (lack) of wonders (marvelous or miraculous things)."

RP.4

I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder (curiosity) and awe (reverence and admiration), 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 airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly (apparently but deceptively) so simple.

RP.5

Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic (unbelievable), doesn't it? Especially when it is realized that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year (in 1960; about 3.5b in the USA and about 17.5b worldwide in 2010 A total of about 60,000 old trees 60 feet tall are needed to produce the annual world’s supply of pencils!).

RP.6

Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye—there's some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser (components).

Innumerable Antecedents

RP.7

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.

RP.8

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 (think about) all the saws (carpentry tool) and trucks and rope and the countless other gear (equipment) used in harvesting and carting (transporting) the cedar logs (timber) to the railroad siding (railroad track for loading and unloading). Think of all the persons and the numberless skills (abilities) that went into their fabrication (manufacture): the mining of ore (raw material to be mined), the making of steel and its refinement (improved state) into saws, axes, motors; the growing of hemp (raw material of rope) and bringing it through all the stages (production process) to heavy and strong rope; the logging camps with their beds and mess halls (very large dining rooms), the cookery and the raising (growing) of all the foods. Why, untold (so many that you can’t count them all) thousands of persons had a hand (participated) in every cup of coffee the loggers drink!

RP.9

The logs are shipped to a mill (lumber mill where timber is processed into lumber) in San Leandro, California. Can you imagine the individuals who make flat cars (railroad cars) and rails (railroad tracks) and railroad engines and who construct and install (put into use) the communication systems incidental thereto? These legions (great number) are among my antecedents.

RP.10

Consider the millwork in San Leandro. The cedar logs are cut into small, pencil-length slats (long thin strip of wood) less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness (= 0.625 cm.). These are kiln (industrial oven) dried and then tinted (dyed) 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 (electricity) and power (energy), the belts (basic moveable machine part), motors, and all the other things a mill requires? Sweepers (janitors or men who clean the floors) in the mill among my ancestors? Yes, and included are the men who poured the concrete for the dam of a Pacific Gas & Electric Company hydro-plant which supplies the mill's power!

RP.11

Don't overlook the ancestors present and distant who have a hand in transporting sixty carloads (full freight cars) of slats across the nation.

RP.12

Once in the pencil factory—$4,000,000 in machinery and building, all capital accumulated by thrifty (careful economic planning) and saving parents of mine—each slat is given eight grooves (long narrow cuts in the slats) by a complex machine, after which another machine lays leads in every other (every second) slat, applies glue, and places another slat (without lead) atop—a lead sandwich, so to speak. Seven brothers and I are mechanically carved from this "wood-clinched" sandwich.

RP.13

My "lead" itself—it contains no lead at all—is complex. The graphite (a soft carbon that is often called lead but really isn’t lead) is mined in Ceylon (an island nation south of India known today as Sri Lanka). Consider these miners and those who make their many tools and the makers of the paper sacks (bags) in which the graphite is shipped and those who make the string that ties the sacks and those who put them aboard ships and those who make the ships. Even the lighthouse keepers along the way assisted in my birth—and the harbor pilots.

RP.14

The graphite is mixed with clay from Mississippi in which ammonium hydroxide (the chemical NH4OH) is used in the refining process. Then wetting agents are added such as sulfonated tallow (animal fats chemically reacted with sulfuric acid). After passing through numerous machines, the mixture (combined elements) finally appears as endless extrusions (as from a sausage grinder) cut to size, dried, and baked for several hours at 1,850 degrees Fahrenheit. To increase their strength and smoothness the leads are then treated (covered or coated) with a hot mixture which includes candelilla wax from Mexico, paraffin (substance made from petroleum used in making candles, sealers, etc.) wax, and hydrogenated natural fats.

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