Next to my grandparents’ telephone was a little silver can of little sharp pencils. Very little pencils. As would be a full-sized pencil, now used up and sharpened, all the way down to the eraser. Every part of that pencil used except for the very end…sharpened and ready to begin…just before the end. My grandfather lived during the depression. For him as for many, to cast away anything so precious as a pencil stub was to waste money on another pencil — that could have been used for an apple, a sandwich….a coffee…or flour to make bread for a family.…