In any event, the story summoned up yet another painful memory from my long list of fatherhood failures.
When our first son reached Cub Scout age his mother and I signed him up, because we knew it was an organization that would involve him in many worthwhile activities instead of sitting around all day watching television or playing video games.
A few months later, his pack held its annual Pinewood Derby, which consists of turning a block of wood and four plastic tires into a little race car. The cars then are raced side-by-side down tracks.
Theoretically, the process of turning blocks of wood into little race cars is done by the Scouts. Realistically, fathers become, shall we say, “involved.”
So our Scout started with three strikes against him. Because while many of the fathers in our pack were engineers and/or handymen with garages full of power tools, my son’s father was a writer who couldn’t engineer anything and never owned or operated a power tool, due to the high probability of severing his typing finger.
But I did my best and that first year we spent countless hours together sawing and sanding until we had turned a block of pine wood into something that resembled a Lamborghini. On race day the car, unfortunately, finished dead last in his heat.
The second year we spent an hour or so putting together a car that vaguely resembled a Ford Pinto. It, too, finished last, although at least it didn’t explode on its way down the track.
The third year we spent 10 minutes slapping together a car that wound up looking exactly like a block of wood on wheels. On race day, our Scout came down with a fever and had to stay home, so we gave the car to a friend of his to race.
The car won the pack championship. (We later learned that the friend had slipped some unauthorized extra weights into the car. The friend, incidentally, grew up to be an attorney, not that I’m implying anything by that.)
That was our son’s last year as a Scout. I’m not sure what benefits he had learned from the Pinewood Derby, but it definitely was a valuable teaching lesson for me. So when his younger brothers reached Cub Scout age, I did what any sensible father would do.
I bought them video games.
About the Author
