A case could be made that crayons are the true common denominator of the American culture. Not everyone loves apple pie. Fewer enjoy baseball. Not every citizen squeals over Elvis.
But the crayon, that's something Americans can sink their teeth into.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Crayola Crayon. In the upcoming week a Crayola tour bus will be working its way through the state. The bus — decked in dozens of party colors — is on a 25-city Magical Mystery Tour to celebrate crayons. That's a long trip from the marker's humble beginnings in Peekskill, N.Y., where the first box of eight crayons sold for a nickel.
American industry was ready to burst onto the world in 1903. And C. Harold Smith and Edwin Binney, inventors of the waxy markers, were able to surf on the wave. Neither they nor their customers, however, could imagine the legacy they'd create.
Today, crayons are a billion dollar industry. Crayola has sold more more than 120 billion crayons, enough to circle the globe 200 times.
But then the crayon, like America itself, has grown by being able to adjust to an ever-changing world.
There was a time, for instance, when the "peach" colored crayon in the box was labeled "flesh" — until both the manufacturer and the country at large came to realize that "flesh" comes in a variety of shades. In the original box of crayons, the world seemed a simple place. One would paint the sky "blue," the mountains "brown" and the grass "green." Now, however, a box of crayons offers a hundred different shades, with most tints taking on a name more exotic than imported lipstick: blizzard blue, magic mint, cerise, mulberry.
In the 100 years since the first crayon was forged, the company and the country have come of age. More changes lie ahead for both. Who can say what colors will emerge, whether in life or art? Still, the Crayola crayon promises to remain a touchstone of American lives. In a recent test, the scent of a crayon was one of the 20 scents most people could immediately recognize.
The taste of crayons may be a different story. Still, filtered through a faulty memory, it seems to us the black ones always had a hint of licorice, the green ones tasted like limes, but the red ones always tasted the best.