It is always a good time to revisit Leonard Read’s classic 1958 essay, “I, Pencil,” in which he examines how a pencil is made — and how miraculous it is that a pencil is even made at all.

The standard pencil begins when a cedar is cut down. Ropes and gear tug it onto the bed of a truck or a rail car.

Think of the countless people and skills involved in mining ore to produce steel and refine the steel into saws, axes and motors, Read wrote.

Think of all the people who grow hemp, then transform it, through various stages, into a strong rope.

Think of the untold thousands of people who produce the coffee the loggers drink!

The logs are shipped to a mill and cut into slats. The slats are kiln-dried, tinted, waxed, then kiln-dried again.

How many skills were needed to produce the tint and the kilns, Read wondered. What about the electric power? What about the belts, motors, and other parts at the mill?

The pencil slats are shipped to a factory. A complex machine cuts grooves into each. A second machine lays lead into every other slat. Glue is applied. Two........

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