Colors

A recent NPR article spoke about the number of crayola crayons available and how many different colors are found in a pack that began as a pack of 8.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2010/01/crayons_and_choice_a_headache.html

As a soon to be new father, I had not given much thought to coloring or drawing with my soon to be born daughter. Bur Kirsten and I had a nice conversation recently about crayons and growing up. We talked about getting our first crayon box and how exciting it was every year when you would get a new box of crayons, at least that is what I said. Kirsten told a different story of getting a used kleenex box of her older siblings broken crayons to take to school. I mentioned how universal that really is, since my brother and I also used an old kleenex box to store out old and broken crayolas and shifting other brands of crayons.

I recently read a series of essays in book from by Micheal Chabon called Manhood for Amateurs. He talked about drawing with his kids and how they all have different personalities in their "art." He also wrote about how he and his wife have to throw away much of the "art" that his children bring home, because there is so much of it. He also mentions the use of broken crayons.

I remember rummaging and crunching through that box to find the right color and sometimes never finding it. I remember the Crayola 64 box with the build in shapener as being one of the best gifts I ever received from my parents and then realizing that the sharpener never really worked well no matter how hard I jammed the crayon into the sharpener it never was perfectly sharp so it ended up in the kleenex box.

Now, the Crayola company fixed that problem with the greatest idea ever, the Crayola Crayon Maker. You take your old broken colors and melt them into new and exciting colors or take the same colors and make a bigger new crayon. What a great idea, except for one thing: the sensations. You will lose the crunch of the kleenex box, and the feel of the rough edge against your skin, the frustration when you have to dump all of the crayons out of the box, and the disappointment in not finding the right color. But you will have pretty new looking crayons.