Pinewood Derby Blues
by Mike Litrel, M.D.

newspaper articles to prove it.

Every hour, on the hour, Mike proclaims loudly, "I'm just a good ol' country redneck... and proud of it." My observation is he's correct on both counts. Mike routinely reassures me, too, that "for a New Yorker, you're not too much of a jerk." Over the past five years, despite different cultural upbringings - or perhaps because of it - we've become very good friends.

Mike was silent for a long while when I showed him the car Tyler and I had built. He looked embarrassed. He studied the car from every angle, as though searching for something nice to say. "We'll do better this year" he finally said softly.

Little did I know what that meant. Twenty hours of re-education and hard labor. That's twenty hours on a wooden car destined to be raced in an elementary school cafeteria. Six hours alone to polish the axles (nails) to decrease the coefficient of friction. Mike used a micrometer to position the tires for the appropriate degree of reverse camber.

In the South, they take their racing seriously.

Finally, race day arrived. I was astounded by the preparation and excitement. New York has nothing on racing in this small Georgia town. Dan Frey spent countless hours putting together a custom-made, four lane aluminum track with a photosensitive eye at the finishing line to accurately determine the winner. The races were indeed sometimes too close to call with the naked eye.

Scores of excited boys and parents gathered outside the ropes erected to protect the forty foot track. They cheered their hearts out with each race. The digital board declared each winner. Tyler lost a very close race early on. It was double elimination - one more race, and he'd be out. I was nervous. More nervous than, say, when I face a patient in the emergency room who has a belly full of blood. In the emergency room, it's just about life and death. On race day, it's about honor and pride.

Tyler's car won race after race. It was hard to keep track of who had been eliminated. Finally his car went head to head with Jordan Posway's. Jordan's car had beaten too many cars to keep it straight. And Jordan's car finally beat Tyler's by a whisker.

Heartbroken, Tyler looked down at his feet and fought back the tears. I put my arm around his shoulders. We had done our best - no reason to be ashamed. But Mike came running up with a big smile on his face and congratulated Tyler. Tyler had taken second place for the entire Pack. Tyler stopped crying and a huge smile appeared on his face. It got even bigger when he saw the size of the trophy he had won.

I must admit that I was pretty darn happy myself. I profusely thanked my good friend and neighbor. Mike had a grin on his face that wouldn't go away. "Without us Southern boys, where would you dumb New Yorkers be?" he asked rhetorically.

I thought about his question only a moment before admitting the truth.

"Last place," I said.

Dr. Litrel is in practice at Cherokee Women's Health Specialists in Woodstock and Canton, and is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Emory University School of Medicine. He lives in Towne Lake with his wife Ann and their two sons Tyler and Joseph. (mikelitrel@attbi.com)

I'll admit it. I was happy when the emergency room notified me that I couldn't go home. A patient required my immediate attention. Perfect excuse to miss my son's monthly Cub Scout Pack meeting.

I loved Cub Scouts when I was eight years old. Every Friday, my twin brother and I and six other boys would meet after school for our Den meeting, with my mom acting as Den Mother. The good news was we had a blast. The bad news was that my mother had a nervous breakdown. She lasted only three weeks before she begged my father to take over. His only goal was to survive the year without any major injuries. So in 1973 our Den distinguished itself by collectively earning the fewest number of merit badges of any Den, possibly in the entire history of the Cub Scout organization.

With these fond memories, I encouraged my son to become a Cub Scout. Father-son bonding, teaching my son about manhood - the whole nine yards. After attending a few Den meetings, however, I had a new insight into scouting: grade school age boys can be vexatious to the spirit.

So I was relieved when the emergency prevented my attending the pack meeting. My only regret was that I would miss our first Pinewood Derby race. Assembling the car with Tyler, I had felt a tremendous rush of nostalgia, remembering my dad helping me with my pinewood car thirty years ago. Tyler and I had fun carving the car, sanding it, painting it, putting the wheels on... we were both proud of the final result. Decades hence, this would be one of those fond memories to warm you up on a cold day.

But when I got home that night and asked Tyler about the race, he began to cry. Not only did all the other kids have nicer looking cars than Tyler's, but his was the slowest. Tyler was humiliated about the car he had built with his Dad. He seemed pretty humiliated about the dad, too.

This was not exactly the kind of nostalgia I had been hoping for. Tyler only stopped crying when I promised on my very soul we would do better the next year.

The next year arrived and, having learned my lesson, I enlisted the aid of my neighbor and good friend Mike Leonard. Mike has an actual race car in his garage. He takes his car to racetracks around the Southeast and... well, races. He has trophies and plaques and