(NOTE: I wrote this in December of 2014. Nothing too profound. As for whether it’s still relevant, I’ll leave that judgment to you, the reader. The only updates I’ll add are that my son finished law school and now works as an attorney for the State of Michigan, while the adventures of Arthur and his friends—as far as tameness goes—might have become the equivalent of Dick & Jane in our evolving times. But then maybe not. Some books endure, like ‘The Poky Little Puppy’ which has held its place as a children’s classic.)
AMONG THE CHRISTMAS GIFTS MY GRANDMOTHER, Ilah Mae Horton, gave us (her grandchildren) when we were youngsters was a pair of pencils with her name engraved on them. Each year she gave these pencils to her fourth-grade students as a gift, so we were beneficiaries of this tradition. Unfortunately, I never saved one as a keepsake, nostalgia not yet being part of my vocabulary or mental contemplation.
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I’M NOT SURE IF THE INVENTION of the pencil, with an eraser, ranks up there with domesticated fire, the wheel, and the printing press as innovations and adaptations that revolutionized mankind’s existence or otherwise propelled us forward on the road to civilization, but it ought to rank high on any list. However, while paying tribute to this ingenious combination of wood and graphite, I confess that I rarely use one nowadays.
The ink pen has become my tool of choice for writing and doing mathematical calculations. If I make a mistake or wish to re-do a sentence or tabulation, I simply draw a line through the offending words or numbers and start over. I do so because any finished product, intended for a viewing by others, is subsequently typed on the computer and then printed.
Oftentimes, like many folks, I bypass the pen and black page and go straight to the word-document icon. With its amenities of delete and insert, cut and paste, replacing an older version with the revised one, and preserving the finished product in the memory file, the document can be edited, polished, and updated to near perfection
. . .
WHILE THE PENCIL still sees much use among young students and is employed by artists for drawing, I wonder how popular it is with higher schoolers, those in college, and the general adult population. Perhaps I’m an exception, and the pencil still reigns supreme in most households, shirt pockets, purses, and student knapsacks
…
YESTERDAY I WENT TO A SECOND-GRADE CLASSROOM at Smith Elementary to take a photo. As I waited for the teacher to write down the names of those in the picture (using an ink pen by the way), I noticed a boy reading an Arthur book. “I used to read Arthur to my son,” I told him, adding that my son is now 26. The young fellow smiled indulgently at my reminiscence, no doubt unable to visualize how great a distance (and also how short of one) 26 years is. “He’s finishing law school,” I could have said, but didn’t. That period of time has flown by, too.
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THE STORYBOOKS I LEARNED TO READ FROM, as did others in my generation, included Dick, Jane and their pets Spot and Puff. These were good, solid characters, still I suspect that their adventures—designed to instill in us a desire to master the written word--- pale in comparison to Arthur and other of today’s storybook stars.
Steve Horton is a mid-Michigan journalist and editor-publisher of the Fowlerville News & Views.