Lead

I am sometimes asked why I think the way I do. Mostly it is my wife that asks this but from time to time I get it from coworkers and the occasional reader. I am jokingly asked if something is wrong with me because of the random stuff that seems to bubble up in my brain. I have even been jokingly asked if I ate lead paint chips as a child. The answer to that question is no. I did not have to, I took place in Pinewood Derby races as a child.

The Pinewood Derby or the Pine-box Car Race as I have heard it called before is arguably one of the most exciting annual events in the life of a Cub Scout. If you do not know what this is I feel for you. The basic premise is that you buy a little kit that includes a rectangle piece of pine, five screws, and four plastic wheels. The kits used to cost a few dollars but with the price of lumber these days it may be cheaper to buy an actual car.

Once you get your kit is then your duty to shape this small block of wood into a vehicle that will race in a tournament amongst the rest of your fellow cub scouts down a rickety wood ramp. You start with your age group and if you win you advance to the next round and on and on, or not.

Actually, you don’t have to shape the wood at all if you don’t want to. One could just attach the wheels and go with that, at least one poor kid did every year. The only real rule is that the car must weigh no more than 5 ounces. The stipulation on the weight is taken very seriously. I remember every year the scales were professionally calibrated and tested with a vial of liquid mercury. Why did someone in my hometown have a vial of exactly 5 ounces of liquid mercury? I do not know but it came out every year and every car in these races was compared to it.

The weeks leading up to the races were a tense time in my home. My father, being a woodworker saw this as a time to really show off his talents. We approached this like I imagine a major automaker does when they want to start a new line of vehicles. First, we had a brainstorming session. Then we were given a pad of graph paper and had to draw out an orthographic view of our idea. From there we went through several revisions until finally we could draw our design on the block of wood and go to my father’s workshop to start sawing and sanding and sweating.

Once we got the car to the point where we were happy and could give it a paint job there was another step. We had to weigh the car to see how far off it was from the goal of 5 ounces. The pine block itself is around 3 ounces give or take and when sawed down it was even lighter so it was our duty to then add weight back.

I’ve seen many techniques. Some would tape coins to the bottom of their car. Some would drill a hole in the back and put in fishing weights. There is even a special weight you can buy that has perforations on it so you can snap off little pieces until you get it just right. That kind of stuff is ok and it works, but compared to what went on at the Walter house, it’s amateur at best.

My father had a pile of junk behind his workshop. Mostly it was just scrap lumber from various projects but in a corner, covered in honeysuckle and blackberry vines was a pile of metal. To be more specific, lead. Sheets of lead that he claimed came from an old x-ray room that was being renovated. He said he was saving it in case there was ever a nuclear war so we could fashion protective clothing.

We would go out to the lead mound and he would cut strips of it off with garden shears. Then we would weigh out the lead and cut them down to the exact 2-3 ounces we needed. The material was then placed in the “lead cooking pot”, which was a beat-up old saucepan that looked similar to what you picture a hobo would cook beans out of. Then we would put the pot on the stove and get to cooking our lead. Yes. The stove. Indoors. The same place we cooked dinner.

We would all stand by the stove and watch this physics lesson take place. Slowly the lead would start smoking and melt into a pile of beautiful colors, not unlike when motor oil seeps into a puddle of water. Then we’d quickly take the pot and pour the lead into a grove bored out in the bottom of the car and watch as it slowly cooled and burned itself into the wood permanently. I will never forget the smell of both pine burning but also a strange metallic chemical odor that did not smell...healthy.

I went on to win many Pinewood Derby races. I even went to the championships a few times. No doubt because my car always weighed exactly 5 ounces and had that extra edge that only comes from painstakingly sanding down the grooves in the nails and lubing them up with enough graphite to start a pencil factory.

Speaking of pencils and writing and lead. When I get that question as to why I am the way I am, and if I ate lead paint chips? I didn’t have to, because I got to vape lead fumes and play with a 5 ounce vial of liquid mercury at least once a year when I was young.