“Color outside the lines; that’s where the magic happens.”
’The morning is cloudy and cold, 33°. My car was covered in frost when I went to get the paper. I am so glad the long ago days of windshield scraping are gone. Now I just wait. The snow has melted on the shoveled and plowed surfaces. My walkway and car are clear. The back stairs are also clear. I threw de-icer on them so the dogs won’t slip.
I have a few uke events this week, but today I am going nowhere. I’m staying cozy and warm. In fact, I actually fell asleep under the afghan for a bit this morning. The dogs joined me. It is already that sort of day.
When I was a kid, I never really minded the cold. My mother made sure that when I went out I was layered and bundled. My school was old. It had tall windows and hissing radiators. It was never really warm. I always wore a sweater over my uniform. I wore knee socks.
I loved when my mother gave me soup for lunch. The thermos kept it hot. I remember having chicken noodle, Campbell’s chicken noodle, only Campbell’s, and she always packed Saltines. I learned to be careful filling the thermos cup. Noodles tended to plop and spray soup. I remember lots of noodles and little squares of chicken.
We always had crayons around the house. My mother and I would sit at the kitchen table or on the rug to color together. She colored the best. She could shade the crayons. My colors were all blunt. I’d always get new crayons for Christmas and sometimes in my Easter basket. At first, I’d keep them in the crayon box. If the box came with a sharpener, I’d keep a tip on the crayons. When the crayons got smaller, I’d have to peel off the labels, no more exotic colors, just red or blue or green. A cigar box was where we kept all the small crayons. I have a few boxes of souvenir crayons. One is in a tin and has all the colors, even the discontinued colors. The other night I saw a commercial for Crayola. They have a new commemorative box of just discontinued colors. I think I need that box.
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February 10, 2025 at 1:52 pm
I was six before I saw a full length crayon in a Crayola box set. Our crayon set was a cigar box with forty or fifty nubs. I probably owe my sore finger joints and crack prone fingertips to having to pinch a crayon nub between my thumb and forefinger. I could never color inside the lines because my fingertips obscured them.
Probably led to my juvenile delinquency.
“That boy just can’t stay inside the lines.”
I put a crayon nub inside the fins on top of my brother’s Cushman Scooter to see what it would do. It melted and started smoking. I still have a scar on the top of my head.
Going to school in the winter here was like a Himalayan Trek. It would be 30 degrees in the morning with a 40mph wind. A wind chill the Admiral Byrd would fear. Then in the afternoon it would be 86. I learned how to tie my coat into a haversack to pack the extra clothes home.
February 10, 2025 at 8:48 pm
Beto,
I always got a box of new crayons but over time they usually ended up in that cigar box. By then they were all different lengths. I have a box with 96 crayons. It is the largest box I’ve ever had. One year I gave out small boxes of crayons for Halloween. The kids were thrilled.
Like you, we had lots of nubs. They were difficult to control being so small so outside the lines was common which could be a sign of rebellion, the start of delinquency!
I remember one such a temperature change. My mother and I were in Boston. It was so hot we got red faced and sat inside for cold drinks. Later, in the afternoon, the temperature changed so much and got so cold we had to go and buy sweatshirts to get warm.