Fall weather has taken hold. The days are sunny and warm while the nights are chilly, even cold. I put on a sweatshirt when I woke up this morning. The house was 67˚. If this were winter, my heat would be blasting. I have errands today, and I’m glad because it is a lovely day to be out and about.

When I was young, the nun would pass out papers with outlines of leaves for us to color. In those days the points of the crayons got blunt which make staying in the lines difficult. You had to attack the leaf with the side of the crayon, not where the point used to be. My leaves were red and yellow. I think everyone’s leaves were red and yellow. I remember carrying my treasure home and how proud I was of my art work. I especially remember how much my mother loved those leaves. She made me feel like a real artist and never did mention I went out of the lines.

Crayola crayons were the best of all. I’d get a box to go back to school and a bigger box, the wonderful 48 brilliant colors with the built in sharpener, in my Christmas stocking. When I was really young, I just called the colors red, blue or green. To differentiate, I’d just say light blue or dark red. I didn’t know names like cerulean or turquoise blue. Raw sienna totally threw me. There were so many reds you couldn’t keep track. Light red, dark red and just plain red weren’t enough. There was brick red and Indian red and maroon, my dark red’s real name.

I had a certain artistic style. The yellow sun always had rays coming out from the whole circle. Girls had turned up hair and boys just had a little on the top. Their hair was always brown. I’d put a skirt on the girls which looked liked a funnel. The boys just had stick legs. I don’t know why I didn’t add pants. My flowers were petals of different colors and each had a long green stem coming from the green grass. The trees had bare branches and were almost stick figures.

I never did get good at drawing. I suspect that if I were given a 64 pack of crayons, I’d start with a bright yellow sun with rays extending from the whole circle. It wouldn’t be lemon yellow or green yellow or orange yellow. Nope, mine would just be plain old yellow.