written in crayon, signed in blood

I used to work for Binney & Smith back in the day back in Pennsylvania. We had our offices located right off of the manufacturing line. Most of the important people were on the second floor and we had the big conference room table at ground level, complete with some oversized crayons and other Crayola products.

The day was Tuesday October 18, 1966 -- You have to understand that over the previous six months or so, there had been quite a bit of talk about renaming colors, and there was a pretty big split on the issue. On the one hand, we had some traditionalists who didn't want to change colors and alienate previous buyers from the brand. On the other, some folks thought we needed to start being more sensitive to thoughts and feelings of marginalized persons. We had a lot of people who had recently left due to this argument. They took high ranking positions in the emerging Chinese crayon market, so as you can imagine, some of these meetings were pretty tense. One of the VPs of product development was acting as the ringleader of the traditionalists. The subject of renaming Indian Red was brought up and he immediately shot to his feet. In a commanding voice, he delivered a speech that I'll likely never forget. He ended with this comment.
He grabbed one of the oversized crayons and tore ass up the stairs. One of us quickly yelled to the receptionist to call the police -- things were bound to get ugly. After about twenty minutes of pure unadulterated rage, the VP finally calmed down. By Friday, he had turned in his resignation. Ironically, the company eventually decided to keep the name Indian Red!

It seemed that the crayon business wasn't for him. He returned to his wife in Canada, and patched things up with her after a lengthy separation. They decided to remain in Canada and raise their five year old son free from the arts and crafts life that had haunted the father. The father started coaching his son in the national sport of hockey, and his son proved to be quite adept. You may not know the father, former Binney & Smith VP Stanley Savard -- but chances are you know his son, hockey hall of famer Denis Savard. Stanley Savard unfortunately died just days after Christmas 2007. Denis wanted to find a way to honor his father. One month later, he gave an impassioned speech similar in style to his father's fateful speech that late October day. I can picture Stanley up in heaven -- smiling at his son with a cornflower blue tear rolling down his cheek.

RIP Stanley Savard 1936-2007

Mike North will be back hosting on the Score by August.

And that's the last I'm going to say on this subject.

Speaking of written in crayon... I devoted a good ten minutes of my work day to this and got trumped by MN retirement news...