Color Memory

At the age of 7 I asked for (and received) a subscription to Vogue magazine for my birthday. It was in it's pages I learnt the true name for ,what was at the time, my favorite color, hot pink. Hot pink was all I had ever known it to be called, when in thumbing through my issue of Vogue I came across some pictures of a wondrous lady. The writing accompanying the pictures was in the color I called hot pink. Not understanding many of the complex words in the article I rushed to have my mother read it to me. The ladies name was Elsa Schiaparelli, a fashion icon, rival to Chanel and the mother of the color shocking pink. I asked my mother if it was the same color as my favorite hot pink, she said it was but this name was older and probably unknown to most people. It was then I realized that I had a new favorite color Shocking Pink! It was the only way I wound refer to my “new” favorite. Jump to later in the same summer, the amusement park Great America, souvenir time, we three kids were allowed to choose one at the end of the day. Mine was a glamorous vinyl purse with tweety bird on the front. When the lady in the booth asked what I wanted I told her the shocking pink purse, she paused, and pointed at first to a pale pink bag, as I shook my head no she then came to my shocking pink purse. I never felt so glamorous, with my high fashion vocabulary and vinyl tweety purse swinging from my chubby, sun-burnt arm. I swaggered to the station wagon like I was walking a run-way, I felt I had lived up to my glamorous color that afternoon, shocking!