It's derby time!

Remember those halcyon days of your dad making a pinewood car for the annual cub scout pinewood derby. Carefully designing, cutting, glueing back together, cutting out again, taping on a bit that fell off, calling it good enough, painting, then trying to get the wheels to actually spin? I know, I was a master at it! I thought of those days this weekend when we went to a classically Portland event: the adult soap box derby. The derby took place in a park near our house, so we met some friends for breakfast and headed up for a day at the races. Well, one look at the audience told us we weren't at the Ascot! I swear, the crowd was just as entertaining to watch than the actual races. Portland is undergoing a rennaissance of seventies sleaze, and it really showed with the lambchop sideburns, mini skirts, polyester clothing, and rock and roll t-shirts. There is something so crazy about seeing a couple looking like they could be a truck driver and a prostitute that works truck stops arriving at an event and pull their hi-tech baby stroller out of their car and wheel their little one around. People won't be able to tell if the baby's baby pictures are from the 1970's or from the Deep South.

Anyway, back to the derby. The cars ran the gamut of precision-engineered speed demons that flew down the hillside at breakneck speeds to lumbering art cars that were more for show than doing anything--kinda like Paris Hilton. One such car was the Office Cubicle." This car was literally an office cubicle, complete with desk, computer, water fountain, book shelf with books, a plant, and an office worker at the desk--all on wheels! The driver sat below the desk and steered the thing while the guy on the computer put his feet up on the guy's back--I guess the computer guy was middle management. That car didn't go very fast, but it got a HUGE cheer from the audience the entire way down. (Which had NOTHING to do with the free cupcakes they were giving away--I promise.) In another one, some girls had made a car shaped like a bathtub and they wore towels wrapped around then under their arms. Well, unfortunately for that car, one of the wheels seized as they went around a sharp turn and the whole thing tipped onto its side and skidded off the track--skidding the flesh off their shoulders along with it. Of all the cars to have had an accident, it just HAD to be the one with the team wearing towels, didn't it?

We had such a great time it was a shame we had to leave. We secretly hoped to get to witness an accident firsthand, (we only saw the bathtub accident aftermath). Like I said in my post about going to the drag pageant--seeing people being so creative and enjoying the moment is just the kind of thing I've been needing. It's so easy to get caught up in the al Qaida/Iraq/Bush/Global Warming/energy crisis/Lindsay Lohan scandal/election year negativity that it seems like there's nothing we can do to make the world a better place. Well, seeing a big bearded guy with aviator goggles sitting in a kiddy wading pool on wheels speed down the side of a hill with the kind of smile that is impossible to remove from your face and you know that the world has hope after all.