I am in the process of cleaning up and clearing out our workshop-slash-storage room so that I can have a place to prep and finish my canvasses.  (Our garage is too open-air and dirty for this purpose.)  So, while decluttering, I came across my blocks (or my sister’s) which my mother saved and then my sister saved until she mailed them to me.  Which means I get to throw them away.

The blocks have been sitting in a shoebox in our storage room for several years.  The lid of the shoebox bears my mother’s label (in crayon): CRAIG’S BLOCKS.  I guess this made it official — though the blocks were originally given to my sister, the fact that I defaced every single one of them with pencil and/or crayon and/or model paint was apparently enough in the eyes of the law to make them mine.

I must say, playing with these blocks gave me an early appreciation for font design.  The blocks shown here (which comprise the full contents of the CRAIG’S BLOCKS shoebox) came from four different sets.  Set No. 1 had big bold letters like a Clarendon slab-serif, while Set No. 2 offered a more formal look, similar to a condensed modified Roman font.  The blocks in Set No. 3 were not letters but parts of an illustration of a girl’s face.  (Take a closer look at those earrings — their expressions are disturbing.)  Finally, there was the orphaned hollow plastic block from Set No. 4 (shown as the mouth of the block-face girl).  One of its faces was a capital B, the next face a lower-case p, its third face the word eight in lower-case italics.  This was not one of my favorites.  It was the only block I did not deface.

Before one gets overly sentimental about one’s blocks, a grandparent must ask, what is the lead content of the paint on the letters?  Would I let my grandson play with these?

The answer is no.  They have already caused enough brain damage.  These blocks must go.