Pinewood Perplexities

I’ve never been one to follow the rules.  I’ve paid a price for processing life from that vantage, and I’ve consulted the rules after discovering my path wasn’t the best plan, but for the most part…I’ve always preferred my way. 

Take music for example. My mother was determined that I become a musician. My father was determined that I become a basketball player. They talked about it…and mom bought an organ. Yes…the first instrument I ever laid hands on was a Hammond organ. For my musician pals…not a Hammond B3…which in some circles still retains a level of cool. No, ours was a less expensive version Hammond organ. 

When one is of the male gender and in the fourth grade, sitting down at an organ for half an hour is like getting a root canal or a colonoscopy…at the same time. I was to “set the buzzer” on the stove in the kitchen for 30 minutes and practice my lesson for the week. To me the sound of the buzzer was better than anything I produced on that organ. I remember you could hear the buzzer beginning to sound…a sort of crescendo of growl and squeel. I often got to the kitchen long before it became obnoxious. 

I had followed the instruction to practice. I had accomplished very little. 

My parents took pity on me…or, now that I think about it, perhaps found the organ to be torturous and took pity on themselves. In the fifth grade they bought me a piano. Gone were Mom’s Lawrence Welk aspirations. She replaced them with images of young ladies leaning up against the piano with adoring looks upon their faces as I graced a room of teenagers with contemporary sounds from the piano. 

No such aspiration ever entered my mind. Funny…I did have enough sense to realize as a fifth grader that such parties do not exist. 

A lack of respect for instruction and rule continued for the next two years of piano lessons. Instead of reading the music in front of me, I would watch the teacher’s hands as she played the piece for me. Piano teachers love to play the student’s music. I believe they think its inspiring for their students, or perhaps an audible moment of credential review. I’m certain that for most students, hearing a piece played helps them apply tempo and dynamics to the dots on the page. For me, it was a chance to hear it and then “play it by ear”. 

Why learn the notes if I can produce a reasonable facsimile? 

I got in trouble for playing by ear…and quit taking lessons after two years. It wasn’t six months later when I bought my first guitar.  It was a $15 Harmony F-hole guitar with the strings so far off the neck that it was near impossible to play. Still…I sat it next to my bed and played it almost daily. 

By ear. Rules? What rules? 

I get my penchant for doing things my way honest. My father was pretty independent in his ways. He got that independence from his father. Not sure where my grandpa got it from? That’s a joke. Independence served those men well. Sometimes it got them in trouble. 

I became a cub scout during those “organ years”. Do you know one subject that never came up…nor did I ever raise…during a cub scout pack meeting? The organ. What did come up was the Pinewood Derby.  A cub scout pack meeting never contained greater excitement than the day the derby project boxes were distributed. It was, as if, everyone in the room knew more than me. Actually, take the “as if” out of that last sentence. Everyone did know more than me. 

They knew more than my Father as well.

The pinewood derby is a race of little wooden cars that are carved from a kit. Take a moment to Google, “Pinewood Derby”…and you’ll see cars that were carved by boys…who have fathers who make cabinets for a living. A bit of an exaggeration, possibly. Have you seen the Richard Petty #43 stock car? Definitely the work of a fourth grader. 

The point? This is a father/son “follow the rules” event. I remember opening the box, seeing the wooden elements, and noting the look on my dad’s face. I’ve worn that same face many times over the years as a direction avoidant, rule rejecting father. That face joins countless fathers over decades who have spent the wee hours of Christmas morning inserting slot “hh” into “gg”. While I’ve worn that face countless times, I’ve never had my disdain for rules bite me like it did my father in 1972.

I remember whittling on my race car a bit…enough to take the wooden rectangle edges off. What was left was a wooden block with two grooves to insert the cars axels. Ever see one of those documentaries about the engineering of a new car? There’s a part where someone takes a block of clay and begins to carve and mold a proto-type. My car looked like the original block of clay. My father slapped on the axels and wooden wheels and we were ready to go. Or so we thought. 

The race was held at the fellowship hall of the Wayne Township fire department. An old house owned by the volunteer fire department behind my elementary school. There was only one thing to see upon walking into the room. Never mind the folding chairs strewn about or the posters of CPR procedures on the wall. The kitchen counter had Igloo coolers, but snack and drinks weren’t the point of the evening. All eyes were on the three tables placed end to end and the five-lane inclined drag strip racetrack. 

Cars were placed at the top against a gate. The gate was pulled and all five would utilize the earth’s gravitational pull as they surged toward victory. All of the cars stopped with a thump as they hit the end rail. It was quite exciting. Everyone picked their favorite as they were placed at the top of the track. One of the dads recorded the winners on a big chalk board on wheels. Murmurs ensued as fathers commented and complained at the obvious work of their peers. Righteous attitudes reigned with the common mantra, “The boys involvement is more important than creating the perfect project” along with “winning isn’t everything”…especially when one of the fancy cars won.   

Then came my turn. I was about to challenge the “winning isn’t everything” mantra. 

Four cars were placed at the top of the hill. Mine was the last to be placed, but something was wrong. Each lane had two grooves cut in the wooden track. The car wheels were meant to run in those tracks. The wheels on my car were ever so slightly too wide. In other words, my car had to be wedged into lane number five. When the gate was pulled, four cars sped toward the finish line. Mine sat proudly at the top of the hill. 

Thinking back…no one laughed…not even the other cub scouts. I’m not sure anyone had ever seen a Pinewood Derby car refuse to run. It was a bit humiliating when the other cub scout leaders all took a turn giving my car a slight nudge…a little scoot…a bit of a twist…and finally removing two wheels from one of the grooves and letting my car go down the track unlevel. Sort of like it had two flats on one side.

That day I learned that winning isn’t everything, but its really nice to be competitive.   

Turns out the instructions in the pinewood derby car box indicated the precise dimensions for creation of the car. It cautioned that each block of wood is not uniform and that following the rules was imperative. I don’t remember much about cub scouts after than event. 

I kept that car on a shelf in my room for a long time. I still wish I had that car. 

You know…I carved it myself.