Gentlemen, Start Your Engines

Today was Cub Scout Pinewood Derby Day. We've been working on the car for about the past week. We should have started sooner. There was a fair amount of consternation because Boy Scouts is supposed to be my activity with Connor, yet with work and the baby, Bob had to help a bit more than he anticipated. But, in the end, everyone had fun. Considering that it required substantial investment in blocks, axles, wheels, weights, glue, sandpaper, paint, a new postal scale, and the aforementioned marital negotiations, it seems sad that it was all over in one hour. Here's the car. We're not woodworkers so it looks like a blue doorstop with wheels. Here's our scout at the derby. He loved cheering the countdown. Three. Two. One!! And they're flying down the track! Here we are. About to come in third in this heat. And here's the final standings. Connor finished 8th. Not bad for a first run at it. He got a little sad at one point, but pulled it together. The Wolf scout winner, Drew Petitt, also had, in my opinion, a really cool car. It was black and green and had a dragon head and tail. Drew's dad told me the other night that they had no hope because he wasn't taking it too seriously and they were having fun and with those rubber parts on it it wouldn't go very fast. Then, they smashed the competition. Awesome!

The Scout

I haven't had time to post too much this fall--we've been really busy and honestly, with a baby, I try to use all my spare time for sleeping. That's why I haven't gotten around to this topic: we have a Boy Scout in the house. A really handsome one!

He's in a new Den with only two other boys. There was some big controversy at the beginning of the school year where they had totally overloaded one Scout Master with too many kids. So, they broke up the group into three and we're in the smallest. Connor has been working on learning the "Bobcat Trail" and he's doing fairly well. I really need to sit down with him this week as his "Akela" and get him through the last few pieces of memorization. His Pack meeting is in a few weeks and he needs to be ready.

One of the reasons I wanted Connor to be involved in scouting is that it is a good framework for learning that the world does not revolve around you. Since we don't go to church, we need an environment for our kids that helps us to foster their sense of place in the world--and in service to others.

Today we collected groceries for a local food bank. We started "Scouting For Food" last week by dropping off empty grocery bags at about 200 houses. That's him up there running back to the car after hooking a bag on someone's front railing. It took us 1 hour and 45 minutes to drop off the bags and he was a sweaty mess.

Today we went back to pick them up. It took half the time to pickup. I'd say we got about a 15% hit rate. I think that's pretty typical, but really, that's pretty sad. All these people in half million dollar houses. They can't cough up a bag of canned goods? Really? I was STUNNED by the number of houses where the bag we hung on their railing was still in the same place a week later.

Regardless, our car was full of food that other people need. And I'm proud of my scout for giving his time to help other people. Nice job!