enchanting

All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten
by Robert Fulghum

"Crayolas plus imagination (the ability to create images)- these make for happiness if you are a child. Amazing things, Crayolas. Some petroleum-based wax, some dye, a little binder- not much to them. Until you add the imagination. The Binney Company in Pennsylvania makes about two billion of these oleaginous sticks of pleasure every year and exports them to every country in the United Nations. Crayolas are one of the few things the human race has in common. That green-and-yellow box hasn't changed since 1937. In fact, the only change has been to rename the 'flesh' color 'peach'. That's a sign of progress.

The way I know about 'flesh' and 'peach' is that when I bought my godson his trainer set, I indulged myself. Bought my very own set of sixty-four. In the big four-section box with the sharpener built right in. Never had my own set before. Seems like I was always too young or too old to have one. While I was at it, I bought several sets. Got one for the kid's mother and father and explained it was theirs, not his.

What I noticed is that every adult or child I give a new set of Crayolas to goes a little funny. The kids smile, get a glazed look on their faces, pour the crayons out, and just look at them for a while. Then they go to work on the nearest flat surface and will draw anything you ask, just name it. The adults always get the most wonderful kind of sheepish smile on the faces- a mixture of delight and nostalgia and silliness. And they immediately start telling you about all their experiences with Crayolas. Their first box, using every color, breaking them, trying to get them in the box in order again, trying to use them in a bundle , putting them on hot things to see them melt, shaving them onto waxed paper and ironing them into stained glass windows, eating them, and on and on. If you want an interesting party sometime combine cocktails and a fresh box of Crayolas for everybody.

When you think about it, for sheer bulk there's more art done with Crayolas than with anything else. There must be billions of sheets of paper in every country in the world, in billions of boxes and closets and attics and cupboards, covered with billions of picture in crayon. The imagination of the human race poured out like a river. Ronald Regan and Mikhail Gorbachev used crayons, I bet. So did Fidel and the emperor of Japan and Rajiv Gandhi and Mrs.Thatcher and Mr. Mubarak and maybe even the ayatollah. And just about everybody else you care to name.

Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon A happiness weapon. A Beauty Bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air- explode softly- and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth- boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either- not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.

Guess that sounds absurd, doesn't it? A bit dumb. Crazy and silly and weird. But I was reading in the paper today how much money the Russians and our Congress just set aside for weapons. And I think about what those weapons will do. And I'm not confused about what's weird and sill y and crazy and absurd. And I'm not confused about the lack of, or the need for, imagination in low or high places. Pass the crayons, please."

dare to dream