Colors
28/06/24 02:43
When I kept my pilot’s license current, part of the process was having regular physical examinations by doctors who were certified flight surgeons. The examination was a bit more thorough than the annual wellness checks I now receive from my doctor. One part of a flight physical that I don’t remember having been administered in other exams is the color blindness test. My eye doctor does administer a simple color blindness test at each exam, but the tests from flight physicals involved several pages of images from which I read numbers to confirm that I was noticing the contrasts between various colors.
So far as I know, I don’t suffer from color blindness. I don’t know much about color blindness except that it is much more common for men to have some degree of color blindness than for women and I heard somewhere that the genes involved in color blindness are inherited from one’s mother. Some people have a degree of color blindness from birth. Others develop the condition as they age. Some diseases such as diabetes and multiple sclerosis result in those who suffer developing color blindness. There are also some medications and drugs that have color blindness as a side effect.
While I don’t think I suffer from color blindness, I do sometimes hesitate when describing the colors I see, especially when asked to describe someone’s clothing. I do well with the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. I can identify black and white. But sometimes I hesitate over aqua or burgundy or goldenrod. I’m familiar with a basic twelve hue color wheel. There are, however, a lot of nuances between various colors and I sometimes don’t use all of the names that clothing manufacturers use.
I describe my perception as having a smaller color palate than some. I blame Crayola brand crayons.
When I went to first grade, the list of supplies we were to bring to the first day of school included a box of eight crayons. My parents followed those instructions to the letter. While quite a few of the other kids in my class had boxes that contained 16 crayons, I had only eight. I used all eight of them during the school year, but I didn’t bother to learn the names of the additional crayons that were in the boxes of my classmates. We all had Crayola brand crayons. I don’t think that the dime store in our town carried any other brand.
Later, when I was older and the school supply lists specified that we have 16 crayons, 16 is what my family got for me to take. One year, when I was old enough to participate in buying my own school supplies, I splurged on a box of 24 crayons. While I don’t think our family was impoverished, splurges were not all that common. My parents both came into their teenage years during the Great Depression. They were uncomfortable with unnecessary spending and taught us to be careful and purchasing a huge box of crayons was on the list of things that one did not need to do.
Perhaps I should explain that I entered first grade the same year as the Crayola company introduced the super box of 64 colors with a built in sharpener. Before that, the largest box of crayons available from the company had 48 crayons and was said to contain one of every color that a the company made. The announcement of the 64 color box included not only the announcement of new colors, but the elimination of some of the color names from the 48 color box. That box was a thing of beauty. 64 colors arranged in four rows of sixteen with each row higher than the one in front of it. There were dividers in the middle of each row creating eight definite sections of colors. And when a new box was opened the colors were not arranged in the order of the color wheel. There were yellows in several different sections, as well as reds and greens and blues.
I know because Debbie B., who lived at the end of the same block as our home, brought a box of 64 to school on the first day of fifth grade, which she repeated. Before that she was a year ahead of me in school, but we caught up in the fifth grade. I never did get as tall as her. I never had as many crayons, either.
When our children went off to school, the standard box of crayons was 24, I think. Over the years the names of the colors in the 24 crayon box have changed. Cerulean has been one of them for as long as I can remember, but Bluetiful is a color in the new boxes that wasn’t in the ones of my childhood. New boxes of 24 have both Green Yellow and Yellow Green. I couldn’t identify the difference without the names on the crayon labels. I stumble with red and scarlet as well. For the record, I think dandelion and sunshine are the same color.
Yesterday I went to a craft store with our ten year old granddaughter and we paused at the display of crayon boxes. Oh my! We’ve moved on from 64 colors! They had the 64 color boxes. But they also had ones with 96 crayons, and others with 120 crayons, and even an “ultimate” box of 152 crayons. It looked to me like there were multiples of some colors, but I suspect that the Crayola company came up with 152 different names for the labels.
If she had asked me, I would have bought the 152 color box for our granddaughter. Those would have been used at home, however. These days the kids don’t bring crayons to school. They are supplied and all of the children have access to the same colors.
I haven’t kept up with Debbie B. I wonder if she has to pause when getting dressed in the morning to discern if salmon goes with burnt sienna, or if she can wear raw umber shoes with neutral gray slacks. Do you suppose she has both rose pink and brilliant rose lipstick?
As for me. I’m pretty much back to 16 crayons and that seems like enough colors for me to be happy.
So far as I know, I don’t suffer from color blindness. I don’t know much about color blindness except that it is much more common for men to have some degree of color blindness than for women and I heard somewhere that the genes involved in color blindness are inherited from one’s mother. Some people have a degree of color blindness from birth. Others develop the condition as they age. Some diseases such as diabetes and multiple sclerosis result in those who suffer developing color blindness. There are also some medications and drugs that have color blindness as a side effect.
While I don’t think I suffer from color blindness, I do sometimes hesitate when describing the colors I see, especially when asked to describe someone’s clothing. I do well with the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. I can identify black and white. But sometimes I hesitate over aqua or burgundy or goldenrod. I’m familiar with a basic twelve hue color wheel. There are, however, a lot of nuances between various colors and I sometimes don’t use all of the names that clothing manufacturers use.
I describe my perception as having a smaller color palate than some. I blame Crayola brand crayons.
When I went to first grade, the list of supplies we were to bring to the first day of school included a box of eight crayons. My parents followed those instructions to the letter. While quite a few of the other kids in my class had boxes that contained 16 crayons, I had only eight. I used all eight of them during the school year, but I didn’t bother to learn the names of the additional crayons that were in the boxes of my classmates. We all had Crayola brand crayons. I don’t think that the dime store in our town carried any other brand.
Later, when I was older and the school supply lists specified that we have 16 crayons, 16 is what my family got for me to take. One year, when I was old enough to participate in buying my own school supplies, I splurged on a box of 24 crayons. While I don’t think our family was impoverished, splurges were not all that common. My parents both came into their teenage years during the Great Depression. They were uncomfortable with unnecessary spending and taught us to be careful and purchasing a huge box of crayons was on the list of things that one did not need to do.
When our children went off to school, the standard box of crayons was 24, I think. Over the years the names of the colors in the 24 crayon box have changed. Cerulean has been one of them for as long as I can remember, but Bluetiful is a color in the new boxes that wasn’t in the ones of my childhood. New boxes of 24 have both Green Yellow and Yellow Green. I couldn’t identify the difference without the names on the crayon labels. I stumble with red and scarlet as well. For the record, I think dandelion and sunshine are the same color.
Yesterday I went to a craft store with our ten year old granddaughter and we paused at the display of crayon boxes. Oh my! We’ve moved on from 64 colors! They had the 64 color boxes. But they also had ones with 96 crayons, and others with 120 crayons, and even an “ultimate” box of 152 crayons. It looked to me like there were multiples of some colors, but I suspect that the Crayola company came up with 152 different names for the labels.
If she had asked me, I would have bought the 152 color box for our granddaughter. Those would have been used at home, however. These days the kids don’t bring crayons to school. They are supplied and all of the children have access to the same colors.
I haven’t kept up with Debbie B. I wonder if she has to pause when getting dressed in the morning to discern if salmon goes with burnt sienna, or if she can wear raw umber shoes with neutral gray slacks. Do you suppose she has both rose pink and brilliant rose lipstick?
As for me. I’m pretty much back to 16 crayons and that seems like enough colors for me to be happy.
