The Pencil Factory & Black Coffee

 

Some great stories are life altering- How I survived- I almost didn’t make it- And that’s when I realized my dad was really my brother’s uncle…

Stories that shape and change and almost end your life.

This is not one of them, it’s a story about going to work, wanting a cup of coffee, and being clumsy.

I broke my thermos.

It was an old thermos, but not a hipster, vintage, retro type of thermos, just an old, bought at Sears in 1997 blue and white plastic thermos with a glass insulated liner regular everyday working mans thermos.

Suitable for hot coffee, hot soup, hot chocolate or cold beverages, keep the hot side hot the cold side cold for at least 5 hours every day thermos.

For clarification, I ONLY ever kept coffee in it.

Black & hot.

I had been working my job, my chosen career for several years, as a commercial photographer and photojournalist since high school, side by side with my drinking and unlicensed pharmacist knucklehead buddies- then I met a beautiful young lady, who then became my wife, and I realized, the job I had that I spent 80 hours a week doing as a teen then a 20 something, then an almost 30 newlywed, that I did every waking hour and sometimes in my sleep- was going to kill my 2 year old marriage.

So, I decided to quit- hang up the cameras, the dark room, the “extra-curricular Bolivian Marching Powder” activities and become a well-respected working-class citizen.

I was going to hang up my wild days and become a hard-working family man like my father- who spent 39 years working for the same company in San Leandro CA before being transferred to a brand-new shipping depot that he would run near our suburban house in Hayward, CA until he died at 56 years of age in 1988.

Before that Hayward depot opened up, we would often ride with my mom to pick him up at he end of his swing shift at the Caterpillar Tractor Shipping Warehouse in San Leandro CA , late at night, fighting to stray awake in the back seat of our Chryslers station wagon, and a few blocks before we approached his warehouse, the smell would hit us- The Pencil Factory-

That smell of a brand-new Number 2 pencil, fresh cedar- was everywhere.

The Pencil Factory- that’s what everyone called it, was synonymous with that part of San Leandro.

Dad worked late so was asleep when we went to school, and when we went to bed he wasn’t always home, so when we got to go with mom to pick him up, it was special-it was DAD time, and that was rare.

Dad Time and that smell of the Pencil Factory- it meant comfort, it meant home.

When I decided to give up my wild days, become the father my dad had been, I took a job with a security company- they were going to put me up at a High-Tech chip manufacturer near my home, 7 days after I was hired. Steady work, 9-5, down the street from my house.

But they told me, in that 7-day interim, I may be called to fill in until I took my regular assignment, and 2 days later they called at 2 pm, can I come in at midnight and work a shift at Hudson Lumber in San Leandro CA.

I had never heard of Hudson Lumber, they gave me the address, I wrote it on a piece of paper and put it in the cover of my Thomas Guide, and asked my bride, “I have to work a graveyard shift tonight, so I’m going to bed, wake me up at 11”.

I went to bed, she went shopping, and one stop she made was Sears, to buy me a thermos so I could have hot coffee on my rainy, thunderstorm first night for Pinkerton Security at Hudson Lumber, San Leandro, CA.

A few hours later, I followed my Thomas Guide instructions to Hudson Lumber and low and behold, Hudson Lumber, who supplied wood and wood type products to the entore3 Western United States, was in fact, the Pencil Factory.

I was so excited- I was going to have, 8 hours, all by myself, the ENTIRE PENCIL FACTORY FOR MY OWN! - to explore, to investigate, to smell.

And that’s what I did- I did my rounds, every hour, walking through the entire factory- as a security professional, I proceeded to steal pencils, small pieces of sample wood, tablets with the Hudson Lumber Logo, match books with the logo, a stapler- no logo, but I needed a stapler at home, and I did this all while wandering around leisurely drinking hot black coffee from my brand new Sears & Robuck thermos.

I thought about my dad all that night, he had died about 10 years earlier- smelling that Pencil Factory smell that in my brain meant we were almost at my dad’s work.

Coffee and pencils.

 Dad and home.

Now, I’ve had that thermos ever since- then, a few months ago, on January 7, 2026- some 29 years after my wife bought me a new Sears and Robuck Thermos, I dropped it- the glass insulator shattered, coffee poured out inside the back seat of my van-

I stared at it- and began to sob. Not a weep- a full-blown blubbering snot coming from my nose shoulders shaking wailing.

In that moment, the smell of the Pencil Factory, memories of my dad exiting the warehouse loading dock late at night, memories of my dad laying in a hospital bed in April of 1988 all came welling up out of nowhere- all because I was clumsy and I dropped my almost 30-year-old, probably not more than $8 blue plastic thermos with a white cup and a glass insert thermos.

Yet there I was, Balling my eyes out.

Over a thermos.

And 12 cups of black coffee.

I had no idea why that hit me so hard, but it did.

So, we don’t need to climb a mountain, sail a sea, or cross the great divide to feel the massive impact of a life altering story- sometimes it just takes a late night, a familiar smell, and a clumsy hand to remind us that we’re all very fragile- like a 30-year-old thermos with a glass insert.