December 19, 2025 • 24 mins
For Shop Talk, we dive into the origin story of a pencil and what lessons it has for An Army of Normal Folks. We bet you didn’t see that one coming!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, everybody, Bill Courtney, welcome to the shop. Oh that
was an extended belt shop talking number eighty two.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
And Alex, Hey, do you know any eighty two numbers?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Do I have any eighty two numbers? No? Eighty two?
There's got to be a tight end that played. That's
really good at eighty two. Lynn Stalworth, maybe John Stalworth,
John Stalworth, that's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
That is good.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
And then I didn't know him, but I didn't know
I played.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
For Pittsburgh's receiver. He's good.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
And another one I didn't know also played for Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Antoine Randall L.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Antoine Randall L. But trust me, Stalwarth that's Hall of
Fame stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
He has a Hall of Famer.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, Randall LL not so much. Randall L is just
a neat name.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I guess it's a cool name.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah. How about we should come up with an all
named team like pac Man Jones, Precious but my favorite
kool Aid McKinstry. Who names your kid kool Aid.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
That's his actual name, not the adopted name.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
No, kool Aid McKinstry, Precious Oshawa and Pacman Jones. Those
are the three that come to the top of my mind.
We'll come up with the all name team. All right, Uh,
today's shop Talking I'm Brady two. Is the eye pencil story.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
The we are going to tell you the story, the
story of a pencil, how it came to be.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, I have done this before and it is great, interesting,
and I can't wait to do this. Yeah, it's and
the pencil is actually something as simple as a pencil.
Everybody that's touched it, where it comes from. All of
that to show connectivity, I.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Guess yes, the invisible hand connectivity.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
All of the steps it takes to make something so
simple work correct. Can't wait. So the I pencil story,
it's absolutely worth listening to. Right after these brief messages
from our general sponsors, welcome back, shop Talking Numb Brady two.
(02:36):
So the perspective of the way Leonard Reid wrote the
ipencil story is the pencil is the first person in
this thing, and Leonard reads writing it as if the
(02:58):
pencil wrote to I think, is that? How there?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Okay, the pencil tells its own genealogy.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
The pencil tells its own genealogy. But it's really interesting,
So stick with us, you'll love it. I am a
lead pencil the ordinary wooden pencil, familiar to all boys
and girls and adults who can read and write. Writing
is both my vocation and my avocation. That's all I do.
(03:27):
You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well,
to begin with, my story is interesting, and next I
am a mystery, more so than a tree, or sunset,
or even a flash of lightning. But sadly I'm taken
for granted by those who use me as if I
were a mere incident. And with that background, the supersillous
(03:49):
attitude relegates me to the level of commonplace. Let me
tell you something. This dispensul has quite a vocabulary. Is suluous. Yeah,
this is a species of the grievous error in which
mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For the wise GK.
Chesterson observed, we are perishing for want of wonder, not
(04:13):
for want of wonders. I pencil simple, though I appear
to be merit your wonder and all 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
(04:34):
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
so simple, simple, yet not a single person on the
(04:56):
face of the earth knows how to make me. This
sounds that fantastic, doesn't it, especially when I realize that
there are about one and one have billion of mankind
produced every year in the United States. Pick me up,
Look me over. What do you see? Not much meets
the eye. There's some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite, lead,
(05:19):
and a bit of metal and an eraser. Just as
you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so
it 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. My family tree begins with what, in
(05:42):
fact is a tree, a cedar of straight grain and
growth in northern Californian organ Now contemplate all the saws
and trucks and rope, and the countless other gear used
in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding.
Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that
into their fabrication. The mining of war, the making of
(06:03):
steel and it's refinement and assaws, axis motors, the growing
of hemp and bringing it through all the stages to
heavy and strong rope. The logging camps with their beds
and mess halls, the cookery and the raisings of all
the foods. Why, untold thousands of persons had a hand
in every cup of coffee the loggers drink. The logs
(06:26):
are shipped to a mill in San Leonardo, California. Can
you imagine the individuals who make flat cars and rails
and railroad engines, and who construct and install the communication
systems incidental there too. These legions are among my antecedents.
Consider the millwork and San leonardro am, I saying that right,
(06:49):
San Leonodro. Yeah. The cedar logs are cut into small
pencil length slats less than one fourth of an inch
in thickness. These are the kil dride and then tinted
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 dride. Again, how many
(07:13):
skills went into the making of the tent and the kilns,
and displaying the heat, the light, and the power, the belts,
motors and all the things a mill requires. Sweepers in
the mill among my ancestors, Yes, and included are the
men who poured the concrete for the dam of Pacific
gas and electric hydroplan which supplies the mill's power. Don't
(07:35):
overlook the ancestors present and distant who have had a
hand in transporting sixty car loads of slats across the
nation once in the pencil factory, four million dollars in
machinery in building, all capital accumulated by thrifty and saving
parents of mind. Each slat is giving an eight grews
by complex machine, after which another machine lays lead in
(07:58):
every other slat, applies glue and places another slat atop
a lead sandwich. So to speak. Seven brothers and I
are mechanically carved from this wood clinched sandwich. My lead itself.
It contains no lead at all. As complex the graphite
is mined, and where's the mind? Saline sea lion. Huh,
(08:23):
the graphite is mined in another country. Consider these miners
and those who make their many tools, and the makers
of the paper sacks in which the graphite is shipped,
and those who make the strings and the ties and
the sacks of those who put them aboard ships, and
those who make the ships. Even the lighthouse keepers along
the way assisted my birth and the harbor polts. The
(08:44):
graphite is mixed with clay from Mississippi, which is ammonium
hydroxide is used in the refining process. Then wedding agents
are added, such as sulfonated tallow animal fats chemically reacted
with furic acid I think, through numerous machines. The mixture
finally appears as endless extrusions as from a sausage grinder,
(09:07):
cut to size, dried and baked for several hours at
eighteen hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit to increase their strength
and smoothness. The leads are then treated with the hot mixture,
which includes candelia wax from Mexico, paraffin wax, and hydrogenated
natural fats. My seedar receives six coats of lacquer. Do
(09:28):
you know all the ingredients of lacquer. Who would think
that the growers of castor beans and the refiners of
castor are part of it? There are why even in
the process by which lacquers made a beautiful yellow involve
the skills more persons than one can enumerate observe the labeling.
That's a film formed by applying heat to a carbon
(09:50):
black mixed with resins. How do you make resins? And
what prey is carbon black? My bit of metal, the
ferrell is brass. Think of all the persons who mind
zinc and copper, and those who have the skills to
make shiny sheets brass from these products of nature. Those
black rings on my ferral or black nickel? What is
(10:10):
black nickel and how is it applied? The complete story
of why the center of my ferrial has no black
nickel on it would take pages to explain. Then there's
my crowning glory, and elegantly referred to in the trade
is the plug the part man uses to erase the
errors he makes with me. An ingredient called fectus is
(10:31):
what does the erasing. It's a rubber like product made
by reacting rape seed oil from the Dutch East Indies,
which sulfur chloride. Rubber, contrary to the common notion, is
only for binding purposes. Then too are the numerous vulcanizing
and accelerating agents. The pumis comes from Italy, and the
(10:52):
pigment which gives the plug its color cadium sulfide. Does
anybody wish to challenge my earlier assertion that no single
person on the face of the earth knows how to
make me? Actually, millions of human beings I've had a
hand in my creation, no one of whom even knows
more than a very few of the others. Now, you
(11:13):
may say I go too far in relating the picker
of a coffreeberrier in far off Brazil and food growers
elsewhere to my creation. If this is an extreme position,
I shall stand on my claim. There isn't a single
person in all of these millions, including the president of
the pencil company, who contributes more than a tiny, infinitesimal
(11:34):
bit of know how. From the standpoint of know how,
the only difference between the miner of graphite and Salem
and the longer and organ is the type of know how.
Neither the miner nor the longer can be dispensed with
any more than can the chemist at the factory or
the worker in the oil field, paraffin being a byproduct
of petroleum. Here's the astounding fact. Neither the worker in
(11:58):
the oil field, nor the chemist, the digger of graphite
or clay, nor any man who makes the ships or
trains or trucks, nor the ones who runs the machines
that does the neuraling on my bit of metal, nor
the president company performs a singular task because he wants me.
Each one wants me less, perhaps than does a child
(12:18):
in first grade. Indeed, there are some of among the
vast multitude who never saw a pencil, or would they
know how to use one. Their motivation is other than me.
Perhaps it is something like this. Each of these millions
sees that he can thus exchange his tiny nohow for
the goods and services he needs or wants. I may
(12:39):
or may not be among these items. There is, in fact,
still more astounding the absence of a mastermind, of anyone
dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me
into being. No trade of such a person can be found. Instead,
we found the invisible hand at work. Will be right back.
(13:23):
That is the mystery to which I referred earlier. It
has been said that only God can make a tree.
Why do we agree with this? Isn't it because we
realized that we ourselves could not make one. Indeed, can
we even describe a tree? We can't, except for in
superfluous terms. We can say, for instance, that a certain
(13:44):
molecular configuration manifests itself as a tree. But what mind
is there among men that could even record, let alone direct,
the constant changes of molecules that transpire in the lifespan
of a tree. Such a feed is unthinkable. I pencil
I am a complex combination of miracles, a tree, zinc, copper, graphite,
(14:06):
and so on. But to those miracles which manifest themselves
in nature, an even more extraordinary miracle has been added,
the configuration of creative human energies, millions of tiny no howls,
configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to the human necessity
and desire and the absence of human masterminding. Since only
(14:28):
God can make a tree, I insist only God could
make me. Man can no more direct these millions of
no hows to bring me into being than he can
put molecules together to create a tree. The above is
what I'm meant when writing. If you can become aware
of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save
the freedom of mankind as so unhappily losing. Four. If
(14:53):
one is aware that these no hows will naturally, yes automatically,
arrange themselves into creative and productive pass in response to
human necessity and demand, that is, in the absence of
government or any other coercive masterminding, then one will possess
an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom of faith in free people.
(15:16):
Freedom is impossible without its faith. Once government has had
a monopoly of a creative activity, such as, for instance,
as the delivery of males, most individuals will believe that
these males could not be efficiently delivered by men acting freely.
And here's the reason. Each one acknowledges that he himself
doesn't know how to do all of the things to
(15:38):
male delivery. He also recognizes that no other individual could
do it. These assumptions are correct. No individual possesses enough
no form nation's male delivery, any more than any individuals
possess them know how to make a pencil. Now, in
the absence of a faith in free people and the
unawareness that millions of tiny nohows would naturally miraculously form
(16:03):
and cooperate satisfy this necessity. The individual cannot help but
to reach the erroneous conclusion that mail can be delivered
only by the government masterminding. If I pencil were the
only item that could offer testimony on what men and
women can accomplish when free to try, then those with
(16:24):
little faith would have a fair case. However, there is
testimony glore. It's all about us, and on every hand,
mail delivery is an exceedingly simple when compared, for instance,
to the making of an automobile, or calculating machine, or
grain combine or milling machine, or to tens of thousands
(16:46):
of other things. Delivery why in this area where men
have been left free to try. They deliver the human
voice around the world in less than one second. They
deliver an event visually and in motion to any person's
home when it's happening. They deliver one hundred and fifty
passengers from Seattle to Baltimore in less than four hours.
They deliver gas from Texas to one's range or furnish
(17:08):
in New York at unbelievably low rates and without subsidy.
They deliver each four pounds of oil from the Persian
Gulf to our eastern seaboard, halfway around the world, for
less money than the government charges for delivering a one
ounce letter across the street. The lesson have to teaches
this leave all creative energies uninhibited, merely organized society to
(17:32):
act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus
remove all obstacles the best it can permit these creative
no hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men
and women will respond to the invisible hand. The faith
will be confirmed. I pencil seemingly simple than I am,
(17:54):
all of the miracle of my creation as testimony that
there's practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain,
a cedar tree, the good earth. I remember reading that.
I think I read it in college. It's either high
school or college. Some professor had us read it. It is, oh,
(18:15):
you don't want me to get political. But it does
speak to how important our freedoms are, how important free
trade is, because the pencil can't exist without parts and
places from all over the world tariffs. And it also
(18:38):
speaks to what an army of normal folks can do
when energized and running things versus the mastermind of an
all too powerful centralized government that somehow we convince ourselves
(19:00):
we can't live without. The greatest line there is that
we can deliver oil from the Persian Gulf to the
Eastern Seaboard by volume cheaper than the government can deliver
a one ounce envelope across the streets. That we have
(19:24):
to get our minds around what an army of normal
folks left free to operate and do what they do,
can create against the backdrop of some all powerful big brother.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yeah, I think it really makes the case for an
army of normal folks. Obviously he's mostly talking about the
economy there, but I think the same thing with all
of our social problems.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Sure, it's the same thing, It's absolutely the same thing.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
And even put the government aside, like my new colleagues
will even often talk about like large distant nonprofits aren't
likely going to solve these problems either.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
It's often going to be top down. Two.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
If it's just a program, right as in normal folk,
like a member in your local community helping out one
other person, they're going to have way more knowledge about
what that person needs.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
You know, versus some distant bureaucrat.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah. I mean, honestly, the etymology of a pencil is
a bottom up idea. It's all of these itty bitty
little subskill sets, each person doing what they can, not
even the understanding, many of whom will not even understand
(20:32):
that their work will lead to a pencil, but doing
what they can, and all those little subskill sets coming
together from an array of different places that end up
being a pencil. The metaphor, I think is if each
of us in the army could just do what we
(20:54):
can where we can. We may not even can see
what the big picture looks like down the road, but
we're all vital and integral to the creation of a
better society.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I think it's good humility too.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
I'm sure you had a similar realization, but somewhere around
twenty two or twenty five I had the thought like, man,
I know nothing. There is just like so much to
know out there. Yeah, and even this thought, when you're
reading it, like thinking about your business out here, think
about the tens of millions of people involved with creating
all the parts in your.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Facility, right, I mean, it's just incredible.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
There's no way you could know all the knowledge related
to that, right, I mean, so it's good humility for
us to.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I can't tell you how many times we have a
piece of machinery grow bro and finding the replacement parts
involves four or five or six different countries to find
all the parts that we have to get to put
machines back together. And it is It is just like
the pencil and some guy making a set of bearings
(22:00):
somewhere in Ohio that's going to go on a shaft
created in Mississippi, that's going to combine to a mechanical
board created by from in Italy, and then all of
that assembled in Memphis to be put on a drive
(22:23):
on a machine created in Quebec whose sole job it
is to put strapping on a pack of lumber to
keep the pack of lumber and the strap is extruded
in India. That all is simply to put a band
around a pack of lumber. When you think about it,
(22:46):
that's insane.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
But it's easy to do one thing well, and it's
easy to love one person. Well, it's true, Well you
don't nothing else doing that. It's it can change the country.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So yes, we just told a story about a pencil,
But that story is a metaphor for so much more.
And ultimately, the metaphor is each of us do really
well what we can, where we are, and what we're
passionate about, and create an army of normal folks. And
even your little bits of work, you may not even
(23:20):
see what the final product is or can even fathom
what it could be, but the etymology of a pencil
shows us that millions of efforts can make something incredible.
So that's shop Talk number eighty two two, and we
appreciate you joining us, Alex, What do we got to do?
(23:44):
If people like this, they need to rate it and
review it.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Join the podcast, subscribe to the podcast, Join the Army
of Normal Folks at us. If you live in these
six places Oxford, Memphis, Atlanta, Milwaukee which it's a Clinton,
New York. Join our local chapters, and if you want
to start one, let me know. My email is Army
at normal Folks dot us.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, and if you have any ideas for people to
interview on an Army of normal Folks or an ideas
for shop talk, please write us anytime at built normal
Folks dot us and hopefully it's a good idea we'll
take it up and I guess that's it. Shop Talking
number thirty two. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you
next week.
Hey, everybody, Bill Courtney, welcome to the shop. Oh that
was an extended belt shop talking number eighty two.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
And Alex, Hey, do you know any eighty two numbers?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Do I have any eighty two numbers? No? Eighty two?
There's got to be a tight end that played. That's
really good at eighty two. Lynn Stalworth, maybe John Stalworth,
John Stalworth, that's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
That is good.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
And then I didn't know him, but I didn't know
I played.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
For Pittsburgh's receiver. He's good.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
And another one I didn't know also played for Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Antoine Randall L.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Antoine Randall L. But trust me, Stalwarth that's Hall of
Fame stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
He has a Hall of Famer.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, Randall LL not so much. Randall L is just
a neat name.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I guess it's a cool name.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah. How about we should come up with an all
named team like pac Man Jones, Precious but my favorite
kool Aid McKinstry. Who names your kid kool Aid.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
That's his actual name, not the adopted name.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
No, kool Aid McKinstry, Precious Oshawa and Pacman Jones. Those
are the three that come to the top of my mind.
We'll come up with the all name team. All right, Uh,
today's shop Talking I'm Brady two. Is the eye pencil story.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
The we are going to tell you the story, the
story of a pencil, how it came to be.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, I have done this before and it is great, interesting,
and I can't wait to do this. Yeah, it's and
the pencil is actually something as simple as a pencil.
Everybody that's touched it, where it comes from. All of
that to show connectivity, I.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Guess yes, the invisible hand connectivity.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
All of the steps it takes to make something so
simple work correct. Can't wait. So the I pencil story,
it's absolutely worth listening to. Right after these brief messages
from our general sponsors, welcome back, shop Talking Numb Brady two.
(02:36):
So the perspective of the way Leonard Reid wrote the
ipencil story is the pencil is the first person in
this thing, and Leonard reads writing it as if the
(02:58):
pencil wrote to I think, is that? How there?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Okay, the pencil tells its own genealogy.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
The pencil tells its own genealogy. But it's really interesting,
So stick with us, you'll love it. I am a
lead pencil the ordinary wooden pencil, familiar to all boys
and girls and adults who can read and write. Writing
is both my vocation and my avocation. That's all I do.
(03:27):
You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well,
to begin with, my story is interesting, and next I
am a mystery, more so than a tree, or sunset,
or even a flash of lightning. But sadly I'm taken
for granted by those who use me as if I
were a mere incident. And with that background, the supersillous
(03:49):
attitude relegates me to the level of commonplace. Let me
tell you something. This dispensul has quite a vocabulary. Is suluous. Yeah,
this is a species of the grievous error in which
mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For the wise GK.
Chesterson observed, we are perishing for want of wonder, not
(04:13):
for want of wonders. I pencil simple, though I appear
to be merit your wonder and all 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
(04:34):
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
so simple, simple, yet not a single person on the
(04:56):
face of the earth knows how to make me. This
sounds that fantastic, doesn't it, especially when I realize that
there are about one and one have billion of mankind
produced every year in the United States. Pick me up,
Look me over. What do you see? Not much meets
the eye. There's some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite, lead,
(05:19):
and a bit of metal and an eraser. Just as
you cannot trace your family tree back very far, so
it 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. My family tree begins with what, in
(05:42):
fact is a tree, a cedar of straight grain and
growth in northern Californian organ Now contemplate all the saws
and trucks and rope, and the countless other gear used
in harvesting and carting the cedar logs to the railroad siding.
Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that
into their fabrication. The mining of war, the making of
(06:03):
steel and it's refinement and assaws, axis motors, the growing
of hemp and bringing it through all the stages to
heavy and strong rope. The logging camps with their beds
and mess halls, the cookery and the raisings of all
the foods. Why, untold thousands of persons had a hand
in every cup of coffee the loggers drink. The logs
(06:26):
are shipped to a mill in San Leonardo, California. Can
you imagine the individuals who make flat cars and rails
and railroad engines, and who construct and install the communication
systems incidental there too. These legions are among my antecedents.
Consider the millwork and San leonardro am, I saying that right,
(06:49):
San Leonodro. Yeah. The cedar logs are cut into small
pencil length slats less than one fourth of an inch
in thickness. These are the kil dride and then tinted
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 dride. Again, how many
(07:13):
skills went into the making of the tent and the kilns,
and displaying the heat, the light, and the power, the belts,
motors and all the things a mill requires. Sweepers in
the mill among my ancestors, Yes, and included are the
men who poured the concrete for the dam of Pacific
gas and electric hydroplan which supplies the mill's power. Don't
(07:35):
overlook the ancestors present and distant who have had a
hand in transporting sixty car loads of slats across the
nation once in the pencil factory, four million dollars in
machinery in building, all capital accumulated by thrifty and saving
parents of mind. Each slat is giving an eight grews
by complex machine, after which another machine lays lead in
(07:58):
every other slat, applies glue and places another slat atop
a lead sandwich. So to speak. Seven brothers and I
are mechanically carved from this wood clinched sandwich. My lead itself.
It contains no lead at all. As complex the graphite
is mined, and where's the mind? Saline sea lion. Huh,
(08:23):
the graphite is mined in another country. Consider these miners
and those who make their many tools, and the makers
of the paper sacks in which the graphite is shipped,
and those who make the strings and the ties and
the sacks of those who put them aboard ships, and
those who make the ships. Even the lighthouse keepers along
the way assisted my birth and the harbor polts. The
(08:44):
graphite is mixed with clay from Mississippi, which is ammonium
hydroxide is used in the refining process. Then wedding agents
are added, such as sulfonated tallow animal fats chemically reacted
with furic acid I think, through numerous machines. The mixture
finally appears as endless extrusions as from a sausage grinder,
(09:07):
cut to size, dried and baked for several hours at
eighteen hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit to increase their strength
and smoothness. The leads are then treated with the hot mixture,
which includes candelia wax from Mexico, paraffin wax, and hydrogenated
natural fats. My seedar receives six coats of lacquer. Do
(09:28):
you know all the ingredients of lacquer. Who would think
that the growers of castor beans and the refiners of
castor are part of it? There are why even in
the process by which lacquers made a beautiful yellow involve
the skills more persons than one can enumerate observe the labeling.
That's a film formed by applying heat to a carbon
(09:50):
black mixed with resins. How do you make resins? And
what prey is carbon black? My bit of metal, the
ferrell is brass. Think of all the persons who mind
zinc and copper, and those who have the skills to
make shiny sheets brass from these products of nature. Those
black rings on my ferral or black nickel? What is
(10:10):
black nickel and how is it applied? The complete story
of why the center of my ferrial has no black
nickel on it would take pages to explain. Then there's
my crowning glory, and elegantly referred to in the trade
is the plug the part man uses to erase the
errors he makes with me. An ingredient called fectus is
(10:31):
what does the erasing. It's a rubber like product made
by reacting rape seed oil from the Dutch East Indies,
which sulfur chloride. Rubber, contrary to the common notion, is
only for binding purposes. Then too are the numerous vulcanizing
and accelerating agents. The pumis comes from Italy, and the
(10:52):
pigment which gives the plug its color cadium sulfide. Does
anybody wish to challenge my earlier assertion that no single
person on the face of the earth knows how to
make me? Actually, millions of human beings I've had a
hand in my creation, no one of whom even knows
more than a very few of the others. Now, you
(11:13):
may say I go too far in relating the picker
of a coffreeberrier in far off Brazil and food growers
elsewhere to my creation. If this is an extreme position,
I shall stand on my claim. There isn't a single
person in all of these millions, including the president of
the pencil company, who contributes more than a tiny, infinitesimal
(11:34):
bit of know how. From the standpoint of know how,
the only difference between the miner of graphite and Salem
and the longer and organ is the type of know how.
Neither the miner nor the longer can be dispensed with
any more than can the chemist at the factory or
the worker in the oil field, paraffin being a byproduct
of petroleum. Here's the astounding fact. Neither the worker in
(11:58):
the oil field, nor the chemist, the digger of graphite
or clay, nor any man who makes the ships or
trains or trucks, nor the ones who runs the machines
that does the neuraling on my bit of metal, nor
the president company performs a singular task because he wants me.
Each one wants me less, perhaps than does a child
(12:18):
in first grade. Indeed, there are some of among the
vast multitude who never saw a pencil, or would they
know how to use one. Their motivation is other than me.
Perhaps it is something like this. Each of these millions
sees that he can thus exchange his tiny nohow for
the goods and services he needs or wants. I may
(12:39):
or may not be among these items. There is, in fact,
still more astounding the absence of a mastermind, of anyone
dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me
into being. No trade of such a person can be found. Instead,
we found the invisible hand at work. Will be right back.
(13:23):
That is the mystery to which I referred earlier. It
has been said that only God can make a tree.
Why do we agree with this? Isn't it because we
realized that we ourselves could not make one. Indeed, can
we even describe a tree? We can't, except for in
superfluous terms. We can say, for instance, that a certain
(13:44):
molecular configuration manifests itself as a tree. But what mind
is there among men that could even record, let alone direct,
the constant changes of molecules that transpire in the lifespan
of a tree. Such a feed is unthinkable. I pencil
I am a complex combination of miracles, a tree, zinc, copper, graphite,
(14:06):
and so on. But to those miracles which manifest themselves
in nature, an even more extraordinary miracle has been added,
the configuration of creative human energies, millions of tiny no howls,
configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to the human necessity
and desire and the absence of human masterminding. Since only
(14:28):
God can make a tree, I insist only God could
make me. Man can no more direct these millions of
no hows to bring me into being than he can
put molecules together to create a tree. The above is
what I'm meant when writing. If you can become aware
of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save
the freedom of mankind as so unhappily losing. Four. If
(14:53):
one is aware that these no hows will naturally, yes automatically,
arrange themselves into creative and productive pass in response to
human necessity and demand, that is, in the absence of
government or any other coercive masterminding, then one will possess
an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom of faith in free people.
(15:16):
Freedom is impossible without its faith. Once government has had
a monopoly of a creative activity, such as, for instance,
as the delivery of males, most individuals will believe that
these males could not be efficiently delivered by men acting freely.
And here's the reason. Each one acknowledges that he himself
doesn't know how to do all of the things to
(15:38):
male delivery. He also recognizes that no other individual could
do it. These assumptions are correct. No individual possesses enough
no form nation's male delivery, any more than any individuals
possess them know how to make a pencil. Now, in
the absence of a faith in free people and the
unawareness that millions of tiny nohows would naturally miraculously form
(16:03):
and cooperate satisfy this necessity. The individual cannot help but
to reach the erroneous conclusion that mail can be delivered
only by the government masterminding. If I pencil were the
only item that could offer testimony on what men and
women can accomplish when free to try, then those with
(16:24):
little faith would have a fair case. However, there is
testimony glore. It's all about us, and on every hand,
mail delivery is an exceedingly simple when compared, for instance,
to the making of an automobile, or calculating machine, or
grain combine or milling machine, or to tens of thousands
(16:46):
of other things. Delivery why in this area where men
have been left free to try. They deliver the human
voice around the world in less than one second. They
deliver an event visually and in motion to any person's
home when it's happening. They deliver one hundred and fifty
passengers from Seattle to Baltimore in less than four hours.
They deliver gas from Texas to one's range or furnish
(17:08):
in New York at unbelievably low rates and without subsidy.
They deliver each four pounds of oil from the Persian
Gulf to our eastern seaboard, halfway around the world, for
less money than the government charges for delivering a one
ounce letter across the street. The lesson have to teaches
this leave all creative energies uninhibited, merely organized society to
(17:32):
act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus
remove all obstacles the best it can permit these creative
no hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men
and women will respond to the invisible hand. The faith
will be confirmed. I pencil seemingly simple than I am,
(17:54):
all of the miracle of my creation as testimony that
there's practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain,
a cedar tree, the good earth. I remember reading that.
I think I read it in college. It's either high
school or college. Some professor had us read it. It is, oh,
(18:15):
you don't want me to get political. But it does
speak to how important our freedoms are, how important free
trade is, because the pencil can't exist without parts and
places from all over the world tariffs. And it also
(18:38):
speaks to what an army of normal folks can do
when energized and running things versus the mastermind of an
all too powerful centralized government that somehow we convince ourselves
(19:00):
we can't live without. The greatest line there is that
we can deliver oil from the Persian Gulf to the
Eastern Seaboard by volume cheaper than the government can deliver
a one ounce envelope across the streets. That we have
(19:24):
to get our minds around what an army of normal
folks left free to operate and do what they do,
can create against the backdrop of some all powerful big brother.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yeah, I think it really makes the case for an
army of normal folks. Obviously he's mostly talking about the
economy there, but I think the same thing with all
of our social problems.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Sure, it's the same thing, It's absolutely the same thing.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
And even put the government aside, like my new colleagues
will even often talk about like large distant nonprofits aren't
likely going to solve these problems either.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
It's often going to be top down. Two.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
If it's just a program, right as in normal folk,
like a member in your local community helping out one
other person, they're going to have way more knowledge about
what that person needs.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
You know, versus some distant bureaucrat.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah. I mean, honestly, the etymology of a pencil is
a bottom up idea. It's all of these itty bitty
little subskill sets, each person doing what they can, not
even the understanding, many of whom will not even understand
(20:32):
that their work will lead to a pencil, but doing
what they can, and all those little subskill sets coming
together from an array of different places that end up
being a pencil. The metaphor, I think is if each
of us in the army could just do what we
(20:54):
can where we can. We may not even can see
what the big picture looks like down the road, but
we're all vital and integral to the creation of a
better society.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I think it's good humility too.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
I'm sure you had a similar realization, but somewhere around
twenty two or twenty five I had the thought like, man,
I know nothing. There is just like so much to
know out there. Yeah, and even this thought, when you're
reading it, like thinking about your business out here, think
about the tens of millions of people involved with creating
all the parts in your.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Facility, right, I mean, it's just incredible.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
There's no way you could know all the knowledge related
to that, right, I mean, so it's good humility for
us to.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I can't tell you how many times we have a
piece of machinery grow bro and finding the replacement parts
involves four or five or six different countries to find
all the parts that we have to get to put
machines back together. And it is It is just like
the pencil and some guy making a set of bearings
(22:00):
somewhere in Ohio that's going to go on a shaft
created in Mississippi, that's going to combine to a mechanical
board created by from in Italy, and then all of
that assembled in Memphis to be put on a drive
(22:23):
on a machine created in Quebec whose sole job it
is to put strapping on a pack of lumber to
keep the pack of lumber and the strap is extruded
in India. That all is simply to put a band
around a pack of lumber. When you think about it,
(22:46):
that's insane.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
But it's easy to do one thing well, and it's
easy to love one person. Well, it's true, Well you
don't nothing else doing that. It's it can change the country.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So yes, we just told a story about a pencil,
But that story is a metaphor for so much more.
And ultimately, the metaphor is each of us do really
well what we can, where we are, and what we're
passionate about, and create an army of normal folks. And
even your little bits of work, you may not even
(23:20):
see what the final product is or can even fathom
what it could be, but the etymology of a pencil
shows us that millions of efforts can make something incredible.
So that's shop Talk number eighty two two, and we
appreciate you joining us, Alex, What do we got to do?
(23:44):
If people like this, they need to rate it and
review it.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Join the podcast, subscribe to the podcast, Join the Army
of Normal Folks at us. If you live in these
six places Oxford, Memphis, Atlanta, Milwaukee which it's a Clinton,
New York. Join our local chapters, and if you want
to start one, let me know. My email is Army
at normal Folks dot us.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, and if you have any ideas for people to
interview on an Army of normal Folks or an ideas
for shop talk, please write us anytime at built normal
Folks dot us and hopefully it's a good idea we'll
take it up and I guess that's it. Shop Talking
number thirty two. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you
next week.
Host
Bill Courtney
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