E775 - Yellow Pencils and Dead Phone Lines

Why did Henry David Thoreau care so much about pencils—and why did some phone numbers keep ringing long after they were disconnected?

In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro wander into two stories that shouldn’t be connected… but somehow are.

First, we look at the surprising industrial legacy of Henry David Thoreau, long before Walden Pond. As a young man working in his family’s pencil business, Thoreau applied chemistry, precision, and quiet rebellion to fix America’s worst pencils—changing how graphite was processed, how pencils were graded, and why most...