A new box of crayons

Published August 16, 2012

Stockton Sentinel

Stockton, Kansas

It’s that great time of year when kids are packing and unpacking their new school bags, just making sure they’ve got everything on the list. How well I remember these days – not only from my children, but way back to my own bag-packin’ days. Next to Christmas and birthdays, getting new supplies to begin the school year was one of the best times of the year. And not only supplies, but new clothes as well.

             

What I remember best from my young grades was getting the new box of crayons. If my parents couldn’t have bought anything else, if I at least had a new box of crayons, I think I would have been happy. (Notice I waited until many, many years later to admit this!) Even to this day, there’s just something about buying a new box of crayons – now for my grandchildren – that takes me back to that “simpler” time. Just the smell of a new box of crayons brings back lots of memories!

             

I was among the baby boomers that pioneered the Crayola 64 Brilliant Colors box with a built-in sharpener. As first graders, not one of us would have understood the meaning of the word “elitist,” but that’s what we were if we could afford the “Big 64.” There was quite a division between the “haves” and the “have nots” when it came to the Big 64, but everyone got along well because of the sharpener in the box. Everyone in the class suddenly needed their crayons sharpened frequently, and it didn’t matter whose sharpener box they used. It was a great marketing ploy of Crayola to get people to buy the Big 64 box with the sharpener. We went through crayons three times as fast!

             

There’s a cute saying that uses crayons to teach us about good behavior. It’s been around a long time, but the lesson bears repeating as a new school year is upon us. As you buy that new box of crayons – or even if you’re not in need of new ones right now – this is a good lesson for us all.

       “We could learn a lot from crayons:  some are sharp, some are pretty, 

        some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors… 

        but they all have to learn to live in the same box.”

           

I don’t know who came up with this truth, but it probably wasn’t Crayola, because they surely would have added, “some need to be sharpened.” Happy coloring! (And sharpening, if you buy the Big 64!)