Melted Crayons

While at my bookclub a few days ago, I had one of those flashbacks in time that a comment from another person can bring about.  My friend mentioned that someone she knew was going to Africa and was taking donations of clothing and such, but couldn't take crayons because they melt in the heat.  This took me back to a trip I took with my parents when I was eight.
I need to give some of the back story first.  My dad worked in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, WA, from before I was born until after I'd left home to get married, actually until after my son was born.  He got a month's vacation a year.  He did, after all, work for the government.  The summer of 1956, mom and dad, one each of my brothers (I had two) and sisters ( I had two of those also) loaded into our Hudson Hornet and drove east.  I know we also visited my mom's relatives in northeastern Colorado on that trip, but that isn't what this post is all about.

My dad's younger brother lived in Milwaukie, Wisconsin, with his wife and children.  I don't remember much of anything about any of them.  I don't think I visited more than just this one time.  I know my uncle visited us when I was 13, but to my remembrance, I only was around him those two times.
It was summertime when we took this trip.  Perhaps my sister Louise would be able to be more specific about what month, but I only know it was in July or August.  Wisconsin is warm at that time of year, probably warmer than my native western Washington.  Being just a child, I had my coloring book and crayons in the wide back window of that Hornet.  I seem to recall being able to stretch out up there, so there was plenty of room for me to kneel on the back seat and color while we were driving the long distances it took to cross two-thirds of the country.  Well, as luck would have it, when we finally got to our destination, I had other things on my mind than those crayons.  They got left in that back window. And you have probably guessed what happened to them.  They melted!
So much for my coloring on the rest of that trip.  But I did learn a lesson:  don't leave crayons in the back window of a car in the summer because they are likely to melt and blend together!