Back-to-school days have come again, and we're all reconnecting with routines. This late-summer/early-fall time triggers nostalgia. Kids walking to school or getting on school buses bring memories of my doing the same. Do you remember when you colored inside the lines (or out), drew on colored paper, and paid attention to the colored columns in notebooks? Crayons- packaged in 8s, 16s, 24s, 48s, or grand 64s- along with chalk were my first tools. I used white or colored chalk to outline hop scotch boards on our sidewalk. Tempera paints, another favorite, were the medium for finger painting works of art. All these notwithstanding, it was the #2 pencil that really got me going.

Can you believe we were taught how to take care of a pencil? Pencil skills included the correct scribing position, adequate pressure on the point, when and how to sharpen, care of sharpeners, eraser skills, maintenance, and emergency backup of a second #2. Because there was no such thing as a computer or printer then, we were taught chalk, chalkboard, and eraser-pounding care along with watercolor box and brush cleaning and maintenance. I do remember specifically that our kindergarten teacher spent time on these skills because the plethora of school supplies was limited and post-WWII families didn't have resources to buy a multitude of items.

Kindergarten gave rise to my romance with the #2 pencil. To this day I love this writing tool. The feel of a new hexagon wooden skin with the graphite lead core sharpened to a fine point still delights me. The sensation followed me through the elementary grades. . . from my first printing when I spent hours making Os and loops on paper with wide-spaced blue lines to my first cursive attempts of the alphabet of Aa, Bb, Cc, etc. I spent many test hours twiddling my pencils while wishing to get answers.

As I progressed, I learned there were wonderful colored pencils that inspired my creative side. The colors available were even more magnificent than a rainbow. I also discovered charcoal pencils in art class and later the grease pencil when I took a graphics course. Finding there was more to pencils than simply the #2 opened my explorations with the H, F, B pencils, and ultimately the 9H, the latter being the hardest and yielding light gray marks while the 9B, the softest, made dark marks.

Do you remember the day you graduated to ink pens? That was a major moment for me, a startling transition and an exciting taste of growing up. How well I recall hours of trying to create a stain free writing assignment. . . no erasure allowed!

While my experience of pencils and pens progressed, I never outgrew my fascination with the original type of pencil that probably originated in the 16th century. Discovery of graphite in the 1500s most likely made the pencil invention possible. In the 21st century, many variations on the theme are now available: traditional graphite pencils, solid graphite woodless pencils, charcoal, carbon, colored, grease, watercolor, carpenter, copying or indelible, erasable colors, non-reproducible, stenos, mechanical, plastic, and short golf pencils to name a few. If you want to be sure you have a true #2 look for the pencil to have a hexagon wood case that's 9/32" in diameter. It should be 7.5 inches long. Colors of the wood casing may vary, but the yellow is the classic.

Alas I treasure the #2 more than any other marking tool. It can be great hair accessory, a weapon with which to hold one's ground with siblings, the makings for a game of pick-up sticks if one of many, a small baton with which to twiddle away time, a meditation staff when one needs to think, and a chewing stick when words or answers do not come easily. Thankfully, this time-honored instrument has not been replaced by the computer, but I do know at work, the sharpeners are getting harder and harder to find. Long live the #2.