Many reporters have learned, the hard way, that you can’t always depend on a pen to work when you need it. Especially when it’s cold, it can be foolhardy to depend on that ink to flow.
So that’s why we carry pencils, too, even on a springlike Monday in March.
Unfortunately, it looks like the pencil culture is fading away, at least in the State House press corps.
My notes were getting increasingly blurry with the dulling of my pencil. So I asked my colleagues in the press pit if anybody had a pencil sharpener. Nobody from The Gazette of Politics and Business, The (Annapolis) Capital, The Washington Times, or The Baltimore Examiner did.
So I walked down the hallway and asked the Associated Press. No dice. The Washington Post? Sorry. And The (Baltimore) Sun, well they appeared to be too busy for such a request. I continued down the hall. The Department of General Services Police had no pencil sharpeners, and neither did the Department of Legislative Services.
I give up. I’m using a marker now.
