Thursday, May 20, 2010

Today is brought to you by the color orange

This dates me, but I remember when Sesame Street was brand new. I was a stressed, overworked university freshman in 1970 and sometimes I went to the student union to watch Sesame Street to unwind. Color TV was not all that common either... but I digress. I wasn't the only student watching—the show was new, fresh and exciting, even for those of us who had already mastered our counting and colors.
I loved how they would say "Today's program is brought to you by the color ....."
I've often found orange too in-your-face to really enjoy but when I decided to take some color-themed photos this week, I ended up with an emphasis on orange. Orange seems to be everywhere and I fell back in love with it.
Yesterday I went back to the UW Memorial Union Terrace with a friend for coffee. The colorful metal chairs they've had since the 30's are frequent photo subjects. Flash to the past, part 2—when I was a little kid, the Terrace had two styles of metal chairs. One had a springy seat that was fun to jump up and down on. I would guess that's why they didn't last but the State Historical Society says it was due to rust. You can read more about the Terrace chairs and see a picture of the springy version of the chair at this site.
Now they have this giant chair and you sometimes have to wait in line for your photo op. It makes me feel tiny.
 I did my laundry today and my basket is one of the few orange things I own.
I'm starting to look around and appreciate the oranges in my life.

2 comments:

evelien said...

I wonder why orange is always this 'love it or hate it' colour. In the Netherlands it's obvious:'Orange' is the surname of the Royal Family. This way if you wore orange it used to be associated with that. Nowadays orange has become more and more the colour of national sports fanatics (above all soccer).
In the 80's if you joined the Baghwan movement and became a 'Sanyassin' you wore clothes in the orange-red-purple range. I love orange as a colour but for none of the above reasons, but because of it's vitality and warmth.

Carolina said...

What interesting comments about the history of orange! Thank you Evelien.