The Briar Philosopher - Simple Gifts

Years ago, when I lived in Florida, a friend of mine gave me a gift.  It was a simple gift, and I doubt that he knew how much it tickled me.  You’ll probably laugh when you hear what it was.  It was a pencil.  Now, a pencil would be an appropriate gift to give a writer any day, and I would have tickled had it been just any pencil.  

It wasn’t just any pencil.  It was one of those pencils they used to make that was designed to go in the pencil pocket of a pair of bib overalls.  That in and of itself would have been enough to tickle me double but it doesn’t stop there.  There’s more.  Right there on the side of it, in green letters on a white background, it said, “Greenwood Products Company” “Leads the Peanut Market” “Graceville, Fla.” It had History!  Not just any history but local History!

Somehow, my friend managed to give me a gift that hit on three of the things I’ve always been addicted to – Pencils, Overalls, and History.

The pencil addiction may be obvious.  I’ve been writing with one since I could hold one of those great big first-grade pencils in my little fist.  I never could help but write.  I never decided to be a writer.  I just always had to write, ever since I learned how to make letters and figured out how to make a piece of paper talk (The Cherokee called books and treaties “talking leaves” by the way – makes sense.) 

My addiction to writing has always been so great that, if you’ll notice the next time you see me, the last joint of my middle finger on my right hand is bent at a permanent 22° angle to the right.

Overalls, for those who have been reading this column regularly, may be obvious too.  A pair of bib overalls is the most comfortable piece of clothing known to man (or woman) for working in, breathing in, heck, just sitting in.  The pockets are amazing.  They’ll hold a pint jar full of frog eggs, three or four paw-paws, and you can even stop by the chicken house on your way home and gather the eggs (Just remember not to sit down before you empty your pockets.  Trust me.) They’ll even hold a pencil.

The history thing may not be as obvious.  

I love history.  History is like a great big painting of the human story.  And what a story it is.  Ever since we started telling stories and writing stuff down, we’ve been able to keep a pretty accurate picture of where we’ve been.  That’s amazing!

Of course, “History”, as we learned it in school, is mostly about the big stuff – big events, big people.  Real History, though, is made up of smaller things.  It’s the small histories put together that add up to the big stuff – Small histories like “Greenwood Products Company”, “Graceville, Fla”.  They were a part of a bunch of small histories that added up to a big one called “An Agricultural Revolution”.  That revolution came in the form of a peanut and helped to rescue Florida farmers and the American economy from the scourge of the boll-weevil way back when.

There are no “small” histories as far as I’m concerned.  Everything and everybody is a GREAT BIG part of something else (Cells are little bitty things too, but try walking around without them.) 

Our History is important.  Everybody’s History is important.  Because, if we’re ever going to find our way out of the woods, we'd better have some idea of where we came from.  No joke!

I’ll get out my pocketknife now, sharpen my pencil, and put it away for safekeeping.  Some may gasp at the fact that I’d use it, but it was made to be used.  What good is a pencil anyway, if it doesn’t have anything to say? 

Now, if anyone has a historic Jackson County pencil lying around, I’d be proud to have it, but I’m likely to sharpen it up and write a column with it, probably about the pencil.