Don't make me color with "Asparagus".

This year marks the 105th birthday of Crayola Crayons, and I don't think I would be alone if I were to start crying wax nostalgic (which...duh...makes sense because they're made of wax) about their impact upon the life of your average school kid.

Whether or not you used them before you started school it was the hallowed KINDERGARTEN SUPPLY LIST which required--nay--COMMANDED your parents to go forth and purchase no less than the 24 Pack. A few overachiever lucky kids who came to school with the fabled 64 Pack...complete with its own sharpener in the back, but whatever you bought you could always count on the gold and dark green box. Not to mention the name Smith & Binney on the lid. Do kids still groove on the sharp corners of a new cardboard container? For us, those first few moments with a virgin pack that had not been compromised inside one's locker or "side pocket" (If you started school after 1973...you won't know what a side pocket is...so move along) were memorable. The unbelievable aroma of a brand new box which elicited a satisfied sigh when opened and inhaled for the first time. Smokers may recognize this behavior. Or not. The unmolested rows of unbroken wax sticks with their untorn paper wrappers and still-pointy tips. So pristine. So inviting. So full of artistic possibility.

In 1965, having cut your reader's teeth on "Jack and Janet" or "Tip and Mitten", it was a psychedelic experience to slowly sound out the syllables you saw on the crayon's paper wrapper until words like "magenta" , "goldenrod", "burnt sienna" and "raw umber" helped you connect a heavenly shade with an exotic name.

The advent of First Grade didn't change those feelings at all. In fact, it enhanced them. By Fourth Grade I was heavy into note passing  and the best note passers in Mrs. Dedmon's homeroom also happened to be those who enjoyed illustrating their text.

Enter Penny B. I realize now that my note-passing relationship with Penny was temporary. We were never suited to be long term friends. Later, she would combine her love for music and the visual arts with a love for animals. She would earn one more college degree than me, marry a man who--like herself--was incapable of tanning and settle down to the parenthood of a single child and a career training dogs as well as playing the hammer(ed) dulcimer.

But while we were in homeroom together we traded notes. Hers were fashioned from a perfectly rounded script. No cross-outs. Then she illustrated them (Did I mention she could draw?). Every spare spot was covered in her heavy-handed way with a Crayola. You know...some people were "shaders" and used a light hand when coloring something. Others wanted a lacquered finish when applying a crayonned color to a picture. It had to SHINE! Of course, the result spelled certain disaster for the physical integrity of their crayons, but the result was fantastic. I only wish I had saved a sampling of her work.

When we got older the same orgasmic enthusiastic response could be anticipated by purchasing a new set of map pencils, but we were mostly too old or self conscious to decorate our notes for each other. What the map pencils offered as far as sophistication could not be duplicated with respect to sheer variety of color. There were no metallic shades here. No gold, silver, bronze or copper. No "thistle" or "cornflower" or Prussian blue" or "mulberry".

And for that...I'm most sorry. Since the time many of us started school the cast of Crayola's colors has changed again and again. The shades are mostly the same but many of the names have begun to resemble the kind that one would find on a lipstick or a particularly obnoxious flavor of bubblegum. (Yes, "Banana Mania", I'm talking to you!) I'm sorry for that, too. What on earth was wrong with the name "Lemon Yellow"?

What was your favorite Crayola Crayon? Mine was Goldenrod.

***edited to add: Click here to find a complete history of original and deleted Crayola names. Many of the colors stay the same with new ones added but the names keep changing and a few colors have actually been "retired" to the Crayola Hall of Fame. (RIP: Thistle, Torch Red, Midnight Blue, Prussian Blue, Green Blue, Orange Red, Violet Blue, Maize, Lemon Yellow, Blue Gray, Raw Umber.)

A few of them leave me scratching my head a little. Names like : Inch worm, Outer space, Manatee, Beaver and yes...Asparagus. However, any crayon named Macaroni & Cheese is a friend of mine.

Comments

[Gina]

Cornflower... which is kind of funny because as an adult I don't really like blue.

[canknitian]

Midnight blue.

[Prof. J.]

Ah, the smell of new crayons.

[Jo]

Copper, but not in application, I just loved the way it looked unused. Great post!...brought back so many memories. Did you ever find a use for white? I didn't, and I'm still suspicious of it. A lot of the boys used to peel all their wrappers off--naked nameless crayons!, drove me crazy.

[CircusKelli]

I don't remember which color was my favorite, but I do remember being mystified that the red-orange crayon was more orange than red, and the orange-red crayon was more red than orange.

*whispers* I still thrill to the sight and smell of a brand new box of crayons. I make sure my kids get a brand new box every Christmas at the very least. That way, they don't go near the box of crayons I have hidden away in my closet...

[markira]

I went into mourning in college when they retired Lemon Yellow. Actual mourning. It was never my favorite, but I was just appalled that they would take it away in favor of Razzle Dazzle or whatever they named some of the new ones.

Really, whatever was wrong with the original 64? I can see adding more colors, but why did you have to take the other ones away????

From Pearl Jam's "Jeremy":
"At home, drawing pictures
of mountain tops
With him on top,
lemon yellow sun"

mk

[Janet]

Midnight blue was mine too. I was so OCD about my crayons. My daughter immediately peels the wrapper off every crayon she encounters. You can imagine what that does to my delicate sensibilities regarding the care and feeding of crayons.
And we did indeed have "Jack and Janet" as a reader, which was most unfortunate because there was a Jack in my class and I didn't want anything to do with him because he threw up on his desk the first day of class. His desk was directly in front of mine, but he was sitting sort of sideways so I got a clear shot of the entire procedure. It's as clear as if it were yesterday, when it was almost 40 years ago (in September). (See previous comment about delicate sensibilities - I don't suffer barf gladly.)

[toyfoto]

My favorite color from childhood is gone: Flesh.

I did however find an old box in our basement that was complete with Indian Red and Flesh. We let Annabel have them so they are now toast.

[Melissa]

Periwinkle. Ah, I wax nostalgic reading your post today. The smell, the shine, the pointy tips.

[Beth]

Periwinkle.

And, oh, the choice between gentle shading and the shiny, lacquered finish just the right amount of pressure could produce.

I loved looking at the history of the colors and what you could tell about our culture - names changed during the 1960s because of the Civil Rights Movement, flourescent colors added during the 1970s, names changed again in the 1990s because of fear of offense. Fascinating stuff.

[NancyB]

Oh Midnight Blue Midnight Blue, how I loved you...what a spectacular color.
In K and a couple of years beyond we had those really fat crayons - your 8 basic colors - that were flat on one side and they were side by side with the lid that came off.
I just had a flashback to red tie shoes, uniforms, and hiding in the coat closet because our classmates laughed at our really bad haircuts.

[Jennifer H]

I agree with Markira. Show me a 1st grader who wouldn't willingly lug a 96-pack into school on the first day. Oh, and I was a shader. Still am. And I loved the sharpener (do boxes still have those?) My daughter has no respect for the Crayon. They all end up in a plastic box. I have failed somehow. Cornflower was my favorite.

I love this post. Later today, you should watch the news, since I might get arrested at CVS for sniffing the Crayons.

[magpie]

Violet Blue.

[Nance]

For depth and coverage and real go-to dependability, I loved Mahogany. I was a major outliner and hard-presser. I punished my crayons. Both my sons were crayon-peelers.

My all-time favorite color, though, was Pine Green. I loved the way it looked with Apricot. I used to always find a picture of a doll or a child with a cute outfit and use those two colors to make a coordinating ensemble.

[V-Grrrl]

My daughter knew I really loved her when I shared my vintage crayons with her.

You're never too old to color. Go out and buy a new box and have some fun!

[clickmom]

My dentist had a daughter my age and I often found her signed crayon work in some of his waiting room coloring books. She had this technique of coloring darkly over the black coloring book lines and then lightly shading the rest of the space. I copied her style and was a crayola superstar in my own part of the woods.

I loved them all, and took painstaking care to replace my own in the precise spot they came in when the box was fresh. Nothing was sadder than accidentally cracking a new long crispy fresh crayon.

I hate the new names. bah!

[Antique Mommy]

I remember a crayon named "flesh" but I guess they realized that not everyone's flesh is a peachy color and changed it "sorbet" or something.

I love crayons. The smell is intoxicating. I always wanted the 64 pack with the sharpener when I was growing up. Now I have one. I'm rich.

[All Adither]

Sky blue sky blue sky blue sky blue. There. Sky blue.

[stephanie (bad mom)]

Lovely post, this. I, too, was a Midnight Blue devotee. I was also partial to Salmon; maybe that's the good Pacific NW girl in me...

I remember being repulsed by the name Raw Umber, but it was a great shade when coloring forests and wanting to vary the tree trunks.

Like V-Grrl, I showed my kids how much I loved them by allowing use of my personal crayons and childhood coloring books.

[Tootsie Farklepants]

Cornflower and brick red were my favorites. I also loved goldenrod to use as blonde in my coloring books.

[Oh, The Joys]

In the Beavis & Butthead era a crayon called Beaver seems like asking for trouble, no?

[J]

I'm also a big fan of the periwinkle. And the new names leave me cold, because while perhaps creative, they are not DESCRIPTIVE. Sigh. Then again, perhaps they realized you don't need a description,when the color is right there in front of you and you can see it. I mean, who among us didn't spend at least a little bit of time doing comparative study on the differences between 'orange red' and 'red orange'?

[DebbieDoesLife]

Well, now I will go and hang myself. Midnight Blue does not exist for kids today??? It was the most perfect shade of blue imaginable. Dark, mysterious and...blue.

So what have they replaced it with Gangsta's Night?

[ROBIN]

burnt sienna (i liked the name AND the color) and raw umber (because i thought it was a cool name). thanks for the memories this brought back...it just occurred to me, I still use those "colors" when describing something. which is why people under 30 look at me weird. unless it's for another reason...hmmm.

[ROBIN]

burnt sienna (i liked the name AND the color) and raw umber (because i thought it was a cool name). thanks for the memories this brought back...it just occurred to me, I still use those "colors" when describing something. which is why people under 30 look at me weird. unless it's for another reason...hmmm.