Getting small...and indignant

Some survey found that among the most recognizable scents, including Play-Doh, peanut butter and oranges, was crayons. I don't recall if this was Crayola Crayons or any generic pigmented stick of wax, but crayons only means one type to me.

And that's the Crayola 64-box with the flip-top lid and the built-in sharpener, of course.

The kind that melt in the sun and the kind that your best friend probably ruined because she pressed down way too hard and the kind that if the dog ate them...well, anyone who had a dog as a kid already knows the answer to that.

And last Sunday, when my beautiful, smart, creative small nieces, 6 and 3, were visiting Grandma Gladys and Papa, I was invited over to play, and waiting for me was not only my very own Cinderella coloring book but my very own box of Crayolas as well.

About the crayons, some things are the same. The smell, that feeling when you open a fresh new box to see that perfect rainbox of soldiers standing at attention, waiting to be put into service.

But somebody - and they know who they are - mucked around with the names of the colors. For some I applaud their creativity. "Blue" is now "cerulean." That sickly sort-of green-grape color that nobody wanted to use because it was way too pale and ugly is now called "Spring Green." which makes it slightly more appealing but still does not represent any color I've seen in the spring, except in a box of sprouts in the produce department, which is not very appealing to me at all. But Crayola has gone politically correct. "Flesh" is now "peach," which is a good thing, because as I explained to my older niece, one day it dawned on somebody at the Crayola factory (or maybe they got a bunch of angry letters) that not everybody's flesh is peach-colored. And the color names are now represented in three different languages, which not only expands Crayola's marketing reach but is a good lesson for kids.

Some would disagree. Some would claim that it represents the Balkanization of America and we should only have ONE language, and we ought to go down to the Southwest and build not only a big nasty fence along the border but land-mine the sucker as well.

I'm not one of those people.

I just want to color with crayons, for God's sake, not make some kind of political statement.

So. I have my Crayolas. The coloring book is a different story. And for that, I'll make a political statement.

OK, I'm gratedful to Grandma Gladys for my new crayons and my Cinderella coloring book and the chance to come over to play. But I have this thing against coloring books, and it's personal. Yes, small children love them, and they make a lot of money for Disney, and Sesame Street, or whoever else has a popular character to hawk, they're good if for some reason coloring inside the lines is important to you, or if one needs to learn hand-eye coordination. BUT THEY KILL CREATIVITY. AND I WISH TO GOD THAT PRINTING COMPANIES WOULD STOP MAKING THEM.

No, I'm not the Grinch. Fer cryin' out loud, Husband and I have more toys that some of the small fry in our neighborhood. And I own not one, but TWO boxes of 64-pack Crayolas with the built-in sharpener. And Play-Doh. And both Gumby and Pokey. So there.

But kids don't need to be shown what to color. They can color all by themselves. I've seen it. Give them a bunch of paper and some crayons and they will all be little Picassos (or Pollocks, or Rembrandts, depending on their temperament and ability).

And then we give them a coloring book and suck all the imagination right out of them.

I don't mean to put any parents' noses out of joint. Especially the parents of my beautiful, creative nieces, who are wonderful parents. (As is my other brother with his two handsome, creative sons.) I don't know what it's like to have a child who is, for example, in thrall with Barney and has to have the Barney coloring book or else you're going to hear screaming like you've never heard before. Who is quiet in the car or less cranky at family events because they have Princess Jasmine and a box of crayons for company.

And probably the occasional coloring book use is not going to scar a child for life. But as a steady diet I believe it's as soul-crushing as sitting in front of the TV too long or eating too much fast food or whatever the Health Police believe is making our children fat and lazy on any given day.

And I let my kindergarten teacher know that. I don't think she meant any malice when she gave us a project to color in the pretty clown dittoed from some coloring book. Maybe she just wanted a nice, quiet afternoon. Then I had to pipe up that I wanted to draw my OWN clown and didn't want to color some stupid clown from a coloring book.

This got me kicked out of class for the day.

Hence my political position.

But is it too much of a stretch of the imagination to believe that the child whose creativity is consistently thwarted grows up to be an adult who votes the way their friends and parents do, talks in bumpersticker slogans, and basically becomes one of the herd who puts up with paying ten dollars for inane movies, who puts up with a government who tramples on our civil rights, and who sits by idly while networks air very, very bad television?

OK. Maybe you can't blame some innocent Cinderella comic book on the dumbing-down of civilization, but it sure isn't helping any. And don't get me started on the princess thing. That's a topic for another day.