As I waited in line to board my flight out of Marquette, I heard the little boy in front of me ask, "Mommy, why did George Washington use a pencil like this?"

He held up a feather. Browns and whites. Stripes. Flecked a bit but not speckled. Medium long. A small hawk. Or maybe a turkey, though I'm not sure if there are wild turkeys in the Upper Peninsula.

His mom, focused on boarding the plane, replied "They didn't have pencils like the ones we use now."

The little boy looked at his feather, wrote a moment in the air, and followed the pull from his mother's hand as she stepped to the boarding pass exchange.

The man taking the passes, football player big and smiling subtle and sincere, flicked his eyes from the feather to the passes in hand. His voice was soft and slow but deep and playful, and he asked, "Where'd you get that cool feather?"

"The woods," said the boy.

Good answer. No better place to get cool feathers.