My son’s Pinewood Derby car kit sits in my garage.
Frankly, it intimidates me.
Which partially explains why we haven’t started building the car for the big race.
The larger part of the explanation is the big race was three weeks ago.
So what went wrong? I’m still sorting it out. I can trace some of it back to my own unsuccessful Cub Scout career. That unspectacularly brief Scout stint was rooted in a low-hanging fruit approach. You know. Quickly grab all the activity badges for things I’d do anyway. Sports activities. Baseball card collecting. Eating. The occasional bath. Whatever.
In a clear case of the low-hanging fruit not falling far from the tree, my son appears to be adopting the same strategy.
Back to the Pinewood kit on my garage workbench.
(I should note the term workbench is a bit of a misnomer in our garage. Technically, this space is not a bench, nor does it host much work. It’s more of an oversized coaster for drinks, paint, and antifreeze.)
The good news: the kit is in mint condition and could yield top dollar on the open market. Or it could serve as a bittersweet souvenir. One that, in the years to come, could allow my son to recall the carefree days of his youth.
Really carefree. As in “I don’t care about the schedule for the 2007 Pinewood Derby.”
I mean, the whole thing just got away from us.
OK. There’s more to it than that.
Like the fear of woodworking (FLASHBACK: To 6th grade woodshop and the overlacquered, Bunsen-burner seared planter I crafted that my mother dutifully displayed at home). The fear of engineering and physics (FLASHBACK: To that unfortunate egg drop in high school). Heck, even a mild fear of decals, paint and graphite lubricant kept me from diving headlong into this project (FLASHBACK: Some other time. It’s a long and dicey tale.)
Given this checkered past, I wasn’t ready to relive it by building a car. And I wasn't quite ready for my son to feel the shame of the proud pack, who might just expose his dad as a sham. (I don’t think he reads this blog.)
But honestly, I couldn’t even visualize success at this event. The best my mind could conjure was showing up with our entry: a clumsy car resembling a Dutch clog designed by American Motor Cars (AMC), circa 1974. A colorful yet poorly-sanded entry that barely passes muster at inspection, thanks to a parent-unconstitutionally-deputized-as-judge who gladly welcomes a shoddier entry than his son’s into the contest.
My imagination did allow me to see our entry starting the race well, even taking an early lead. At this, I could see the smile spread across my son’s face as our car zipped out of the gate, a good car’s length ahead of the others as it harnessed the glorious momentum of gravity.
But as this played out in my mind, before he could reach me to share in an enthusiastic father-son hug, our car would shudder to a stop on the track halfway to the checkered flag, quite possibly due to three of the car’s tires flying off the axle-nail, the fourth left on the rainbow colored wooden shoe to smoke uncontrollably from the intense friction generated by a heinously calculated wheel to body ratio, which the resulting noxious fumes call unwanted attention to.
As we both watch this in open-armed, slack-jawed horror, the shrieking over-vigilant den mother sweeps our smoldering uni-tired monstrosity from the track and gets four painted pine splinters in her right index finger.
Maybe I’ll just toss the kit . . .
5 comments:
Oh Scott, your blog is laugh-out-loud funny and it probably won't surprise you to know that I experienced a couple of 'FLASHBACKS' of my own while reading it. If you were an unenthusiastic Cub Scout (and you were), your apathy pales in comparison to my own singular lack of enthusiasm during my mercifully short tenure as Den Mother. Do you even remember that I WAS your Den Mother? I'm unclear on the circumstances but I seem to recall that you initially had a wonderful Den Mother whose son was a great kid and gung-ho Cub Scout. She had to step down for some reason and somehow prevailed upon me to finish her term, so to speak. Never was anyone as ill-suited to anything as I was to Den Motherhood. The meetings at our house were utter chaos from start to finish although I do remember with pride the one project that actually turned out - the "distressed candlesticks." Do you remember? I gave each kid a kind of dowel-shaped piece of wood and a hammer and you all pounded on them till they were suitably distressed. We gave 'em a coat of wood stain, drove a nail in the top to impale the candle on, and voila! A lovely Mother's Day gift. I displayed the one you made for years. My Pinewood Derby memories are mercifully dim, but it seems clear that we've got 3 generations of low-hanging fruit etc. etc. 'Stick to baseball' is my motto - you and Andrew are free to appropriate it. :-)
LOL LOL - I am savoring the visions of an unopened Pinewood Racer sitting in the garage...
I hesitate to ask - why not take the position of conscientious objector? These Pinewood Racer Kits are a ruse thought up and propogated by the BSA for years now! Generation after generation has tried in vain to make that cheap 3rd world maufactured piece of garbage into a vehicle of speed. I dare say it cannot be done and I applaud your sense of duty in exposing yet another myth, that so many have try so vigilantly to master, only to have failed!
Then there is the low hanging fruit theory... this makes a lot of sense, as well.
My own Pinewood Racer memory is one that upon opening my eyes one morning, I suddenly realized that my Pinewood Racer was to be built, painted, and finished - then brought to the Den meeting that afternoon... and mine, like Andrew's, was still in a box. Thinking quickly and acting as swiftly as the wind... I feined sickness, of some sort, and stayed home from school, that day, in order to give my undivided attention to the Pinewood Racer. I'm fairly sure that an admonition from my mother came in the form of "Well, you can stay home - but no TV!" Of which I promptly turned on after she left - to help motivate my creative juices in my surge of Racer construction. As I was seated on the sofa in the den, car parts scattered recklessly over the TV dinner tray layed out before me , with the likes of "Green Acres"; "I Love Lucy"; and "Mr. Ed" emitting motivation and inspiration from the black and white Motorola, as it cast a dim flicker of hope on what only hours before seemed an unsurrmountable task. Now, I ws building a Racer! I did have construction issues but with the help of glow in the dark paints, left over from the home-made Martian Halloween costume, the finished racer showed like a Haight/Ashbury psychodelic rock promoters poster. Upon delivery of said racer.. I took great pride in the fact that none other had chosen to use glow in the dark paints... mine truly stood out!
I was proud... but where is it today? I have no idea, but what I do know, is that you take your son to the library on such a regular basis that he knows the staff and where all his favorite books are. He has a love of learning and reading that are now his. No, my friend you did not help your son build a racer - you are providing him with a questioning mind, strong spirituality, and memories of sending time with his "Da"... it sort of makes that Pinewood Racer in the garage appear to be just what it is... a cheap gimmick for father/son activities that you handle in a much better way.
I still possess my Pinewood Derby car from 1969 (actually, it is displayed proudly in my parents home). It is a sleek, burgundy beauty with a black stripe running slightly off-center from the front grill to the end of the "spoiler" in the rear. The precise, LEGAL amount of graphite was ingeniously carved and embedded inside the vehicles undercarriage. At the tender age of 8, I was certain that it was unrivaled in its planning, design, testing, and fine tuning. Of course the total extent of MY participation in the process was in the crucial planning stage. I think it went something like this..."Hey dad, make it look cool". On the evening of the race at the local Methodist church, it tore through all of the competition. I was more concerned with the clear hazards of the old wooden track that we were racing on than the obvious superiority of my engineering marvel. It came down to the championship race. I came face-to-face with the dreaded Mark Graham, my opponent. He was a year ahead of me. An extra 12 months of Derby craftiness and know-how. His dad's name was Tex...How could anyone compete with a kid whose dads name was TEX?! His was an intimidating beast of an entry. He went with the high-centered style. It was painted to appear as a tiger, complete with fangs and a tail made with one of his dad's pipe cleaners. It was definitely a crowd pleaser. I was certain that if there were wagering taking place among the dads in attendance, that mine was coming in at 100-1 odds. The cars were placed at the top of the track. I remember noticing a design flaw in the starting gate. What if my car got stuck at the top of the track when the Race Official opened the gates?! Graham and his car would be hoisted into the air while I stood there dejected. I would be the laughingstock of Pack 283. It turned out to be a needless worry. As the gates opened, both cars began flawlessly. They streaked down the track in a burgundy/yellow/black blur. They crossed the finish line together. There was a hush over the crowd. It was a photo finish. The only problem was that there was no photo. A team of Scout shaman convened to discuss the outcome. It was the longest 2 minutes of my life. Then the announcement.
At our next meeting, my 1969 Derby champion car was passed from scout to scout with a care normally reserved for a Faberge Egg...Except for one kid that made the vile suggestion that we roll the car down the driveway! How could something that was certainly bound for the Smithsonian be rolled down a driveway? My mom, the Den Mother broke the tension by serving some cookies and Kool-Aid and convening the meeting where we made stilts consisting of a cord of rope and two Hi-C cans.
Thanks for the grins Mr Bigs, obviously you haven’t lost your writers touch. Of course your Father/Son episode evokes the memory of yet another Father/Son bonding quest. I being cast as the naively zealous father while unsuspicious Jeremy was appointed the ever patient 10 yr old son. You see the purpose of the “Bright Red ’69 Corvette Coupe Revell Monagram 1/25 Scale Model” was for us to mutually assemble this lightweight box of auto parts. I can’t tell you how many times I anxiously imagined achievement of this grossly underestimated assignment. Reveling & marveling at this hand crafted masterpiece. Fast forward to today Nov 15, 2007 … Jeremy is now 23, graduated from college, living in Colorado. He can’t tell you how many times he visualizes completion of our ongoing venture. Current strategy demands project conclusion prior to his son graduating from high school or possibly college if need be. Being that Jeremy has no kids or wife or prospective girlfriend, it looks like our timetable is somewhat flexible at this point. Please fell free to stop by the house sometime and meander back to the laundry room closet, third shelf, behind the light bulbs … dust off the box top cover and see for yourself the Bright Red ’69 Corvette to be.
oh how the memories return, one day the epic conclusion and revealing of the classic car model will be upon us, and when that day comes i will race into the kitchen, put my wheelchair in lock position, hike my pants to my nipples and let out a triumphant wheez of glory. maybe it might be time to turn this eternity project over to my younger brother michael, who still has a few more years of steady fingers and acute eyesite needed to endure the challenges of what few people ever overcome.
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