I will never forget when I first learned that people are different. It was during the second grade and it had to do with colors.
That's right; crayons taught me that folks were different. I, like many of my classmates, had the standard eight-count crayon box. You know, the kind with the typical colors. However, one day a girl named Karen came into class and placed upon her desk a huge crayon box. It contained 64 different crayons! We all gathered around Karen's desk and marveled at this magical sight. It felt almost like we were seeing a unicorn or something. So many crayons and such a huge variety of colors was truly a sight to behold.
All the new colors we had never experienced before were amazing. Shocking Pink, Pine Green and Turquoise Blue to name just a few. Up until that moment, I did not know that the spectrum of colors ran that deep. Some had names I had never heard before in regards to color. Things like Fuchsia, Aquamarine and Robin's Egg tantalized me and expanded the color palette in my mind.
Karen then proceeded to astound and amaze us all when she turned the box around and revealed a crayon sharpener neatly placed in the back of the box. A crayon sharpener -- are you kidding me? Who knew such a thing was even possible? Everybody hated when his or her crayons got old and dull. It made getting those fine lines on that Daffy Duck picture just right nearly impossible. This sharpener had created a cosmic shift in classroom coloring. Pictures could now be more precise. The S on Superman's chest could now be crisp and clean and jump off the page since it would be in Brick Red now, not just ordinary, old red.
When the coloring portion of our day began, I can remember our classroom's excitement turned to frustration when we realized our color availability could not match what Karen had at her disposal. However, Karen would be very kind and allow everyone to borrow from her immense pile of pigmentation. I can remember the wonderment we all experienced when we watched the first crayon being sharpened. It was breathtaking! We all could not wait to take our turn to use the new colors and get to actually sharpen a crayon. It was very exciting and we looked forward to continuing our shading adventures the next day.
When Karen returned to school the next day, she said her mother had told her she could not share her crayons anymore. We had done quite the damage to those 64 little pieces of colored wax. Some had been broken, others sharpened to about half their original size and I think a couple had been lost. It made sense to prohibit us from abusing those art supplies.
In the coming weeks, more and more kids in our class would bring in their own 64-count crayon boxes. After about a month I would say about a third of our class had the big boxes of beauty. There was an apparent divide between the ones with the larger selection and those of us who had to stick with the original eight.
To my memory, it was the first time I realized that we were not all the same. There are people who have more and people who have less. Nevertheless, the great thing is that we all live under a Sky Blue sky and can enjoy a Sunset Orange sunset anytime we choose. That is just Peachy with me.
Editorial on 05/31/2020