The Power of Pine

For the last five years, I’ve spent one Saturday in January at a unique sporting event that induces anxiety, quickens the pulse and triggers a few tears.

Of course I’m talking about the annual Cub Scout Pinewood Derby.

Harris and Barron working on their Pinewood Derby cars — Harris and Barron hard at work turning their blocks of wood into works of art... fast art.

This anachronistic competition is a throw-back to the days when kids made their own toys out of what they found lying around. In an era when everything is plastic and comes with detailed picture instructions, the Pinewood Derby challenges kids to use their imagination and show dexterity with sharp implements.

It’s a simple concept: You get a block of wood. That’s it. Oh, and four small nails and four plastic wheels. It’s an intimidatingly blank canvas.

Pinewood Derby makes me anxious because I am not a woodworker. I do not possess woodworking tools. I do not possess woodworking skills. We have relied on the help of our friends, Jeff and Christine, who have been gracious with their time, expertise and equipment. They help us get the body of the cars into their basic shapes, so the boys can go to town on them with files, sandpaper and paint to achieve their artistic vision.

Barron's 1966 Batmobile and best bud Noah's Mach 5 of Speedracer fame.

Each year, my oldest son, Barron, has come up with designs that flow right out of his interests. The first year it was a Jeff Gordon replica car straight from his NASCAR obsession. A week after a visit to Sea World in Orlando, he came up with a Shamu car, complete with dorsal fin. After “riding the Ducks” at Stone Mountain he conceived of the amphibious “Duck” vehicle. Beginning guitar lessons last year produced an instrument on wheels. This year he reproduced the 1966 Batmobile, which ran pretty well and received lots of attention from the dads, if not their sons, who remembered watching the old Batman series as kids.

This year was Harris’ first foray into the world of Pinewood Derby. Like all second-born children, he benefitted from his brother’s experience. I still have nightmares about Barron’s first year. I felt like a terrible parent as I watched Barron stand, dejected, at the foot of the race track while Jeff Gordon didn’t have enough weight to roll down to the finish line. I hadn’t done the research from among the myriad websites to help him be at least moderately successful.

Harris posing for a photo for his second place design. — Despite the forced smile, Harris really was thrilled to earn second place for "showmanship" among the Tiger cubs for his hot rod school bus.

This time around, we were ready. Harris’s hot rod school bus did well, earning a second place in showmanship among all the Tiger cubs and first place in speed for our den. His flaming bus may not be sanctioned by the Gwinnett County School Board, but it will get you to school on time.

All told we probably spent 20-30 hours on this year’s cars, including helping Carlton with his car. Carlton’s idea of working on his car was putting five coats of paint on the pine block, each a different color.

Overall it was a great morning at the races. Our nerves gave way to laughs as we spent time with friends. The boys displayed good sportsmanship, pulling for their buddies and not throwing tantrums when their cars weren’t the fastest.

After five years I’ve finally figured out the magic of the Pinewood Derby – time. It’s all about the time Barron, Harris, Carlton and I spent together hacking at, sanding, painting and sealing a block of wood.

Like the race itself, life passes all too quickly. What matters most isn’t finishing first. It’s building what it takes to get you to the finish line.

An Afternoon with Clyde

“You’re dressed up,” Carla said from her chair in the playroom.

She’s mocking me, but I don’t care.

“If I get to meet the man, I don’t want to look like a hobo.”

At a time when good, churchgoing people are sleeping off Sunday lunch, I head to the Decatur Book Festival to hear and hopefully meet my favorite writer, Clyde Edgerton.

Heavy clouds finally threaten rain after a two-week absence. The traffic is light, but Jim and Don tell me the Braves are losing to the Dodgers 3-0. I look up at Stone Mountain on my left as I accelerate onto Highway 78. I’m always amazed by that piece of granite.

“Why am I nervous?” I think as I find a seat on the fourth row of the right center section in the First Baptist Church of Decatur sanctuary. It’s half an hour before it’s supposed to start, but there are already a good number of folks finding their seats.

I decide I’m more excited than nervous. I wish I had brought something to read. It would have been nice if I had brought a copy of the book for Clyde to sign, but, alas, in this digital age I have it downloaded on my Kindle. Don’t want him autographing that.

I pull out my Moleskine and start jotting notes, impressions really, of the scene. Old journalist’s habits die hard.

I wonder if I might see my buddy, Keith, a North Carolinian book editor who let me borrow Edgerton’s books on tape when I was commuting from Macon to Atlanta. I developed an appreciation for Edgerton’s humor and ability to create three-dimensional characters back in 1994 when I read “Walking Across Egypt” and “Killer Diller.” My fondness grew into adoration when I got to hear Edgerton performing more than reading “Raney” and “Where Trouble Sleeps” on the cassettes Keith loaned me. His dialogue was so authentic and the dialect so real.

The auditorium is a little more than half full when in walks Edgerton, wiry and energetic, a backpack slung over one shoulder like the students he teaches at UNC Wilmington. Round gold wire-rim glasses, a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, khaki dress pants and some type of hiking sandal make up his wardrobe. He’s taller than I thought he’d be, but he carries himself with a hint of mischief, just like I had imagined.

He talks graciously with a few of the event organizers before setting his notes on the podium. He goes to the piano and picks out a tune, gaging the sound. He confers with the sound guy.

Who I later learn are long-lost former neighbors and an Air Force buddy find him in a flurry of hugs and laughter. I’m secretly jealous.

The church’s lower level is full, and four women fill in the rest of my pew, trapping me in the middle. The view is great, but I begin to doubt I’ll have a chance to meet him.

Then, a guy in cargo shorts in front of me gets up and walks over to him. I can’t believe it. He just got up and walked right over there and talked to Clyde Edgerton. And he was wearing shorts!

A woman from the Decatur Book Festival takes the microphone and encourages us to Tweet and tells us there will be time for questions before Edgerton will go to a tent
outside to meet people and sign copies of books. Dang Kindle.

Atlanta author Charles McNair provides a magnificent introduction, retelling how he suggested to Edgerton in an e-mail that his remarks might go something like this: “Someday William Shakespeare will be called the ‘Clyde Edgerton’ of his day.” McNair tells us Edgerton responded “Sounds about right.”

Full of nervous energy and overly conscious of his 45-minute time limit, Edgerton dives in with two relatively recent stories, one on his 29-year-old daughter in a hardware store and the other about taking his three younger kids to the open casket funeral of his aunt who “got kicked out of hospice because she wouldn’t die.”

He gets to the main event in short order telling us his new novel “The Night Train” is about “music and friendship.” Edgerton, who himself played in a rock-and-roll band in the early 1960s, translates his experience into the story of a white kid trying to recreate James Brown’s “Live at the Apollo” album note-for-note. The boy forms a forbidden friendship with an African American teen named Larry Lime looking to escape the South by becoming the next Thelonious Monk.

Edgerton reads the opening pages of the story, and although the words were familiar, Edgerton brings them to life, infused with his energy, passion and perfect pitch dialects.

The 45 minutes fly by. He plays and sings a tune he calls “Fat from Shame” and shares samples of “The Jam Part 1” and “I Need Your Lovin’ Every Day” by holding his Apple laptop next to the podium microphone.

“If I had an hour I’d play all of these,” he says with a grin.

Too soon we’re into the question and answer session, and like a rookie just called up to the majors, I am frozen. My mind is blank. I have so many questions. People are firing off their questions left and right, almost as if they had rehearsed them. Why didn’t I rehearse?

He tells them he’s listening to Randy Newman and a jazz pianist named Monty Alexander on his iPod these days and that his next book is going to be about fatherhood. He even gives us a sneak peak at the first two sentences: “Before the baby comes, install the car
seat and put together the crib. It will take four to seven days.”

He whets our appetite for his next novel, a book about a rag-tag group of guys who are paid to perform 21-gun salutes at military funerals.

“There’s going to be lots of tension and suspense in this book. You’ve got to have tension and suspense in a novel.”

He closes with another tune from his laptop. He says he wanted this musical concoction to be the real title of “The Night Train,” but his editors would have nothing to do with it.

He smiles broadly as the song integrates Stravinsky with James Brown.

The room swells with applause, and before I can escape my pew, Edgerton is escorted to the book-signing tent on the lawn. When I do make it out of the church, the line is already a hundred deep and a sprinkle is picking up steam.

I decide I’ll meet one of my heroes another day. Instead, I revel in the enjoyment of the written and spoken word, so ably crafted by one of the South’s most gifted storytellers.

I get in my car to hear Prado single to left, driving home Constanza. Braves win in the bottom of the ninth.

It was an afternoon well-spent.

Patriotism … with lasers!

We moved to the Atlanta suburbs in March of 2003. When July 4^th rolled around that first year, we naively thought we would just take the short, 10-minute drive to Stone Mountain to catch the fireworks.

As it turned out, 20,000 other Atlantans had the same idea. The place was packed. We didn’t even get to the gate before turning around and making a mental note to avoid Stone Mountain on any and all holidays, particularly the Fourth.

In 1983, when Stone Mountain first started its laser show, laser technology was fresh and new. Lasers were blowing up death stars and stormtroopers on the big screen and beginning to find their way into Disney parades and sports venues. It only made sense that lasers would augment a fireworks display with colorful animations unleashing emotions in us we never thought possible. Who could have imagined you could draw the devil running from a monster truck on the side of a mountain with a green beam of light?

Now that lasers are so commonplace that we use them to blast our stones, both gall and kidney, and repair our vision, they evidently aren’t impressive enough to carry the whole show any more. The lasers needed some super-charging, so the folks at Stone Mountain Park have spent $1 million updating their fireworks and laser show to include digital, 3-D projection in their new Lasershow Spectacular in Mountainvision.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution described the effect of this newly revamped laser spectacle as turning the mountainside “into the equivalent of a 5,500-inch high-definition TV screen.” I’ve not seen the new show, which debuted Memorial Day Weekend, but reviews indicate it has all of the elements people loved from the original show, only with more graphics and updated music. There are now 10 segments instead of nine, and the show runs a full 42 minutes.

If you are planning to take in the new Lasershow Spectacular in Mountainvision this weekend, plan to get there early, stay late and get close with 20,000 of your neighbors. The new show promises sweat and patriotism will be dripping from your pores.

I’m so glad Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis aren’t being held back by antiquated laser technology any more. They have definitely joined the New South.

Happy Independence Day!