Color me Happy

The child in me rejoices when we sit down at a fine restaurant and, instead of tacky linen and ringspun cotton napkins and tablecloths, I find a place mat with a connect-the dots game, a Spot The Differences quiz, and a place to doodle with crayons. After ordering my epicurean feast, I turn to the business at hand. It's best to finish before the soup comes, so having quality crayons is important.
(At least, that's how I remember it, when restaurants were open).

I hate to say it, but most restaurants that hand out free coloring mats and crayons are not handing out the real thing, the ne plus ultra of the crayon business: the real Crayola crayons. The second-rate wax sticks would be better off if used at the Used Appliance Store down Belair Rd, to write "AS IS / MECH PERF on an aging Whirlpool icebox.

In the whole crayon world, there are the real and only Binney & Smith Crayola Crayons, and everything else that pretends to be crayons. Crayola is actually part of Hallmark (I did not know that!) and it's still a big business, even though there are other ways to make colored markings now!

A company doesn't stay on top of the world without changing and adding to the product line. Many of us in the age range where no asks for verification to give a senior discount on some denture adhesive, which sells a lot better to our gang than does pimple cream.  Crayola came up with the idea of the 64-pack of crayons with a sharpener built in a long time ago, and since then, they've come up with neon colors and the 96-pack Big Box (featuring colors named by kids!) and washable markers.

I fully expect them to come up with plaid crayons any day now.  But speaking of colors, it was 1962 when Crayola looked around and saw that not everyone's skin was the same color! Huh! Up until then, they had a color called "flesh" which was the perfect color for the Hiltons and the Kennedys. They might as well have called that flesh color "upper crust," but they did wise up and call it "peach."

But here we are in 2020, and Crayola is catching up, releasing 24 new "Colors of the World" to represent the dozens of skin tones people really come in all over the world!

There is a bid deal called "UN World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development" and the multicultural crayons are coming out in conjunction with that glorious day of growth for all of us (except for Bob Ehrlich, former one-term governor of Maryland, a lout who once brayed, "Multiculturalism is bunk.")

Multiculturalism reflects the way the world is. We come in many colors, and vive le difference! "With the world growing more diverse than ever before, Crayola hopes our new Colors of the World crayons will increase representation and foster a greater sense of belonging and acceptance," said Crayola CEO Rich Wuerthele. "We want the new Colors of the World crayons to advance inclusion within creativity and impact how kids express themselves."

You can find the new in packs of 24 and 32.  The jumbo 32-pack also has four crayons each for hair and eye colors. And each crayon will have their color name in English, Spanish, and French.

My skin tone can best be described as "mottled," so it might be hard to match me up. But this is a major step for all the kids who felt left out when the time came to draw a self-portrait. And that's a step for self pride.