Ask and you MIGHT receive.

I write fan letters to people and companies I like.  I also write mean ones when people make me angry too.  But this post is about the nice letters.  I wrote the Queen when I visited England that I was available for tea.  I got a lovely NO back on Buckingham stationery.  I write to my favorite authors all the time and often receive replies.

This is my letter to the customer service department of one of the great loves of my life.  The Ticonderoga Pencil.  It is not my first letter to them.

Dear Ticonderoga Pencil Manufacturers,

I love your product.  No really, I love your product.

Not in a bizarre I want to date them or I am currently hoarding them in a bunker somewhere in a remote location, but in the "This is a FABULOUS pencil!" scream it from the school tops kind of pencil love. I have traveled across Missouri to get picture with your business sign.  

I know pencils.  They are the item most often stolen in the schools today.  This is why my Ticonderogas were always locked up tighter than my purse.

I recently retired as an English teacher and I was saddened to realize I can no longer stand up the first day of class and introduce my to students to great product that is the Dixon Ticonderoga Pencil. For many years I have explained the joys of a lead that does not break, the firm, mostly unbreakable wooden shaft (Okay, I never used the word shaft when teaching 8th graders and tried not to refer to wood either), with an eraser that stays in the pencil top when you use it AND actually erases without smudges or tears.

I love these pencils so much that students have bought the various varieties for me all over the country and I did receive numerous boxes for my retirement.  None of them knew of my secret stash already carefully hidden away.

I prefer the traditional yellow and green version, but often use the black when I want to be a little more cutting edge.  I have the metallics, the breast cancer survivor ones, and extra big versions. And I will keep looking for the next variations too!

Long live the Ticonderoga!

Goldie Edwards

#Number 2 Fan (I am really number one, but two seemed more fitting.)

I don't know if I am ready to let my Ticonderoga love just fade away.  If you need someone to write for your blogs, do appearances across the nation, or star in national commercials I am available.