Around this same time every year, I organize my pens and pencils. I know it sounds geeky, but I get a great sense of comfort and accomplishment out of this little task. It is all in preparation for an even more fun yearly event that is coming up. My grand babies are headed back to school after Labor Day. So this weekend, I am taking them school supply shopping. My daddy absolutely loved taking us to downtown Mobile to first Zoghby’s for our school uniforms and then for the fun… to Kress for the yearly haul of pencils, sharpeners, erasers, notebooks, loose leaf papers, folders, and all the other little odds and ends. My favorite part was the crayons! If he could, Daddy would splurge and buy us the biggest box. I think he loved the built-in sharpener! Even back then I was drawn to the pinks and the turquoise blues and the sea green hues. (As an adult I discovered that Crayola had added Caribbean Green as a color and I had to go immediately buy the whole box just for that one crayon.) If he had extra money, daddy would buy me marbles. At Kress they had crystals and bohunks and steelys – which was special because those were hard to come by. Every year Mama would be mad that he spent so much money. But I think she was just happy we were soon to be in school. I would be thrilled with all of my new shiny loot. I still think there is nothing like a brand new box of 64 crayons to boost a shy little girl’s confidence to go back to school. I can’t wait to do that for my own sweet song lines!
