Vintage work crew photos

[PJs]

Whelp I've missed a couple of days here but love where you guys took the pencil stuff.

Berserkleyboy, good on that teacher and your G-son for adding writing instruments to the curriculum! I've always carried at least a pencil and for perhaps 3 decades carried a pen (YC Quad Point - RGB and backup pencil for drawing markups) and a .5mm mechanical pencil with eraser. [Never draw more in the morning than you can erase in the afternoon.] When my G-son was about 6-8mo. and just talking well, he used to point at them or try to pull them from my pocket when carrying him. So I taught him the names of each and within 30 minutes was able to point and he say the name...needless to say him and I write and draw a lot now at 3. Good to start'em young, imho.

Personally still like quality wood pencils and colored ones too. I've colored 1.5 Anatomy Coloring Books and a fair number of my own sketching's over the years and still a big fan of Sacred Geometry with a ruler, compass, and pencil, then color them in. My favorite pencil is still the mechanical drafting pencils and Staedtler Mars White plastic erasers with a desktop spin sharpener although I have a hand held with carbide teeth that I like a lot.

To me one of the best things is the smell of a freshly sharpened wooden pencil, preferably cedar...TM51 you are right about good sharpeners hard to find them of quality anymore.

As for STEM...it may be a bit corrupted but the idea of it can give kids purpose, kind of like Science Fair used to be. I'm all for giving kids a view of carrots that tempt them to explore and learn on their own and a nudge when they get stuck or need a vector. To me it's about time Industry stepped in to help educate kids, Europe has been doing it for years. A friend from Germany and I were having a conversation the other day about this very subject and their Vocation/education programs (heavily supported by industry) are really excellent and support a students abilities and wants....seems most people in Germany have at least a masters anymore, and half of the people I worked with back then were PhD's. STEM just need to be kept Real to the students with abundant carrots and Minimized Hype, imho.

Lastly, Kudo's to those workers and factories that allowed us to express our ideas through their hard work of making pencils.

PJ