RIVER CITY JOURNAL: HOW MUCH IS THAT MILKY TEAL SHIRT IN THE WINDOW?

Colors stopped being basic a long time ago, but that doesn't prevent wistful memories of basic black.

Once upon time, when folks my age were children in a land not too far from here, there was something special about a new box of Crayolas. There were, if I remember correctly, eight crayons in the flat, yellow-and-green box.

The colors were basic: red, green, orange, black, blue -- and three others. Maybe you remember.

The Crayola people got creative as time went by. Not only did they start making bigger boxes of crayons, they made more colors. Many more colors.

When you get beyond your basic blues and yellows and reds, names for colors start getting a mite iffy.

All of this flashed through my mind the other day while I was picking out a shirt at my favorite men's store.

I saw a pretty blue shirt, but I soon discovered that in the world of fashion, as in the world of crayons, there is nothing as simple as "pretty blue."

This particular shirt, I was told, was twilight. Imagine that. A color named for that magic time when it is neither daylight nor nighttime.

Twilight.

I liked it. Even if it looked pretty and blue.

Automobiles used to come in any basic color you wanted, as Henry Ford put it, as long as it was black. Like crayons and men's shirts, however, the paint jobs on the newest models come in fanciful colors.

A few years ago we bought what we thought was a gray car. Nope. It turned out to be metallic slate. Not to be confused with the bronzed charcoal sitting next to it on the lot.

I went to a shoe store in Cape Girardeau a few months ago and got what looked to be brown shoes. Nope. They're amber. Which brings up an interesting sidelight. What color of polish do you use on amber shoes? Brown? Tan? Neutral? None of the above?

Go to the head of the class if you picked "None of the above." You see, the clever shoe manufacturers figured out if you're brave enough to buy amber shoes, you'll also fork out whatever it takes for amber shoe polish.

Colors tend to be fickle. The fanciful ones don't tend to last too long. There is a certain shade of green, for example, that just screams "1950s linoleum." Smart new-product managers are careful to avoid using colors with strong -- particularly negative -- identifications.

It seems to me there would be considerably less confusion and consternation if everyone would go back to the basics: red, yellow, blue.

Or just plain black. I remember 30 years ago the only tie I owned was black. It went with everything. And except for chicken gravy, hardly any spills showed at all.

Quite a few prominent people -- movie stars, authors, tycoons -- are known for wearing one basic color all the time, no matter how much styles change. Some might say they are eccentric. I say they just don't want to deal with twilight.

Hmmm. I wonder if I still have that black beauty in the closet.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.