Crayolas for Cruisers

The Crayola Crayon is celebrating its 110th birthday. The first box of Binney & Smith Crayola crayons were introduced in 1903. The brand name “Crayola” was originally coined by Edwin Binney’s wife Alice, and comes from “craie,” the French word for chalk, and “ola,” from “oleaginous” (which means oily, not waxy, by the way. Waxy would have been ceraceous, but hey, it's worked for 110 years, so who am I to say).

Back in 2003, for their 100th birthday, Crayola manufactured the world's biggest crayon …. 1500 pounds (680kg) and 15' (4.6M) long. Imagine the coloring book that went with that sucker. I was interested in seeing how crayons were made because I had no idea. It's a pretty neat process.

We carry crayons on board as part of the school supplies we give as gifts to kids and schools along the way. I also use crayons on occasion for decoration purposes. In the hotter, equatorial climates, they tend to melt which is a pain, hence the reason we stick to the higher latitudes.

Crayola had a contest recently to re-name their original offerings of the eight basic crayon colors. The winning names were okay, but not great. My favorite winner was “Freshly Squeezed”, but this, of course, got me to thinking about Crayolas for Cruisers. We've come up with our own basic colors.