How long of a line do you suppose you could draw with one pencil? A mile? Ten miles? 37 miles?

I happen to know that one pencil will draw a line about 4.5 miles long. You don’t have to take my word for it. You can test that conclusion by taking one newly sharpened, standard No. 2 Dixon Ticonderoga yellow pencil and drawing a straight line on a sheet of paper under constant pressure until the pencil needs to be re-sharpened. You then measure how long that line is (it will be about 700 feet long), and multiply that distance by the number of sharpenings the pencil has in it (about 34 per pencil).

You should end up discovering that an ordinary pencil has a writing capacity of about 4.5 miles, an impressive number for the humble pencil. You might get a few extra meters per pencil by applying lighter pressure or using less aggressive sharpening techniques or perhaps using a smoother writing surface, but I’d be surprised if you could get much more than 5 miles per pencil under the very best of conditions.

I didn’t conduct the experiment myself, of course. I’m far too busy surfing the Internet looking for photographs of Angelina Jolie’s twins and voting for the new American Idol to be spending my valuable time conducting pencil experiments.

But I did come across someone who did perform that experiment and reported on it in a little magazine called Northwest Woodlands. Most of the magazine is devoted to more mundane forestry matters such as how to maximize revenue from a small woodlot, chainsaw safety tips, making the most of your pulpwood and the five essential steps in proper tree-felling technique.

I read Northwest Woodlands largely because I like the smell of sawdust and the sight of a freshly split, nicely stacked pile of quality firewood, and the magazine somehow manages to give off a chainsaw and firewood vibe. But I also like pencils, and I was glad to see columnist Rod “Ask the Treeman” Huffman take on this burning question and conduct this important experiment.

I believe the fact that your basic pencil produces over 4.5 miles worth of writing establishes, once and for all, the superiority of the pencil as a writing implement over such other pretenders as the cheap but aesthetically unpleasing ballpoint pen, the mechanical pencil and the much over-rated roller ball.

One of the first things I do when I get to my office Monday mornings is take my jar full of pencils to the electric pencil sharpener and give them all a good sharpening. I keep a little manual sharpener in my desk drawer to do touchups and minor cosmetic work on my pencils during the week. I also use it to hand-sharpen my oversized yellow Ticonderoga “Laddie” pencil and my Certacolor “Quattro” four-colored pencil because neither of them fit in the narrow openings of most commercial sharpeners.

There are few more satisfying experiences than moving a freshly sharpened pencil over a clean white sheet of paper and leaving behind important information such as a grocery list or a weekend to-do list. My favorite use of a pencil is to make humorous sketches of my boss and co-workers during staff meetings. If the meetings run long or the donuts run low, I use my Quattro to color in the sketches for added authenticity.

I’d bring scissors with me to the meeting so I could cut out the sketches and make them into little carton figures that I could prop up around the conference room table, but I sense that doing so would be disrespectful to my boss and co-workers.

Among other memorable things, legendary writer Henry David Thoreau once said: “Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.”

Did you know that Thoreau was a pencil man himself? John Thoreau & Co. was a highly respected pencil maker in Concord, Mass., and Henry helped devise a graphite/clay blend that produced the finest pencils of his day.

Long live the humble pencil and long may she write.

Tom Tyner of Bainbridge Island writes a weekly humor column for this newspaper. This is from his “Classics File” years ago.