Thanks, kid

When I was around eleven, I built a soap box for the annual derby in Philadelphia. Construction took months. The day before the race, I transported my freshly painted race car from the basement of our house to the registration area in the parking lot next to the Philadelphia Art Museum. I got a racing bib and number. I parked my car in a line-up. I surveyed the other entrants.

I never competed.

Theoretically, I had a good reason: I woke up ill on race day. Ill children shouldn’t be taken to an all-day competition and left in the sun, rain, or cold to worsen – especially ill children with a history of recurrent strep throat. Sadly, the symptom complex of sore throat, head ache, and fatigue that I described early on race morning was not the real reason for my failure to race. The real reason was embarrassment.

It’s possible that I might have felt a bit off that Sunday morning. Any boy with a shred of pride would have felt sick seeing the ridiculous piece of equipment that I parked outside the Art Museum on Saturday afternoon. The wheels were the only things on it that generally seemed to point in the same direction. The plywood base was crooked, making the car appear to want to go in a different direction to the wheels. The cardboard sides buckled and bent as if they had been hammered into place by a bunch of first graders. Blue spray paint looked like it was applied in blobs. The thing was laughable, really.

I wasn’t laughing. It wasn’t clear if my derby dud could roll ten yards without coming apart because I had not tested it on any pavement, and I wasn’t allowed to practice on the course when I unloaded the monstrosity in the museum parking lot. As it had no road testing, I didn’t know if I could steer or stop it with the hand controls and brake pedal. So I didn’t even try. I didn’t show up to race. And I never went back to pick the thing up.

Who knows what happened to it? People who might remember details about that pitiful contraption and the sorrowful tale of its abandonment have passed away. I can only imagine race organizers, on being asked what to do with the unclaimed heap, letting some kids salvage its wheels and axles. Within minutes, it would have been dismantled, broken into pieces and dropped into a dumpster.

So much effort, wasted.

Well, the waste was probably not the effort; I have a vague sense of not putting as much time into readying the vehicle for racing as I should have. I don’t remember doing much research. In fact, I don’t even recall why I signed up to compete. None of my neighborhood friends built or raced in soap box derbies. I don’t think I’d ever seen one, except perhaps on TV. And that’s a guess. So why was I entered? What was I thinking?

I certainly wasn’t thinking about making a cool-looking car. One glance at the other cars in the museum parking lot told me that. Those cars had sleek, contoured bodies. They had slick colors. They had numbers. They, and their drivers, looked like winners.

I was the awkward almost driver of the oddest looking ugly-duckling-of-a-derby car entered that year. And that was the waste – that I was the “almost” driver. I should have shown up. I should have let the car have a run down the track. Who knows, I might have won. Or crashed. Or failed to finish. Regardless, I would have had a better story to tell. It might have been a funny one. Picture the sides falling off my trapezoid on wheels as it bounces from the starting ramp onto the pavement. Picture the big-eared, goggle and helmet-free eleven year-old watching his poorly constructed machine disintegrate beneath him along the course. Picture the kid laughing, and laughing some more. Picture him not caring about looking foolish.

I’ve pictured that eleven year-old at different times in my life. He’s given me plenty to think about, and laugh about. Over the years, when I’ve felt myself wanting to flake out on something, or not honor a commitment, I remember how that kid felt when he knew he was faking his sore throat and when he knew he should have claimed his junkyard race car. It’s helped me show up for many things. Not all of them have worked out. But there have been some unexpected surprises and pleasant outcomes.

Thanks, kid.