Month of May

It was dark and cold in the pinewoods where I grew to maturity. When the loggers came to cut the forest they took us all. They didn't even leave any remnant of a woods.

Even before I was hauled away, bulldozers began clearing and I overheard there was going to be apartments built where I once stood. The woods, my home, had been near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the home of the famous 500-mile races. I always wondered what that noise had been during the month of May.

I was offloaded at a lumber mill where I was trimmed, sliced, and diced into hundreds of little blocks. I was then packaged in a little plastic bag along with four little wheels and four nails.

I sat around with nothing to do for over a year, then one day I was moved into a very bright store and placed on a shelf. Along came a little boy about ten years old wearing a blue uniform and a yellow scarf that picked me up. I heard him tell his father, "This is going to be the winner Dad, I can just feel it." The year was 1967 and I could not understand, I was just a block of wood, how could I be a winner?

Quickly I found out how winners are made. They are drilled, sawed, shaved, and sanded into little miniature racing cars. They are painted and sanded and painted again. They are weighed then drilled and filled with lead and weighed again. I had been fitted with the four little wheels and lubricated with fine graphite. I really looked like a beautiful black shinny winner.

The day of the big race came. I was placed on a long sloping track with a car on both sides of me. Suddenly the barrier dropped and down the ramp I went, 8.2 seconds flat. I had won, but that was only the first race. I had to win two more before I would really be the winner. I sure hope my graphite stays in place until this is over.

The second race was no competition. One car was just a block of wood with wheels and the other one looked like a little green bug.

The third and final race looked like it was going to be tough. I only had one to beat, a shinny silver dude that looked real fast.

We were placed on the track. The barrier dropped, down and away I went. Another 8.2 seconds and slick silver dude was nowhere in sight. It seems the glue wasn't quite dry on one of his wheels and it fell off going down the ramp. I was the grand champion of the 1967 Tulip Tree Trace pinewood derby.

For the next ten years or so I was packed away in a box with little flags only to be put on display for a table decoration during the month of May. Then I was packed away in a very dark place for a long time.

Suddenly in 2007 I was taken out of storage, had my wheels fitted with fresh graphite and I was off to a race, only I found I was the backup car to the main one. A little slick looking needle nosed red thing. Me and little needle nose were slipped on to the track for a little test run before the real races. I showed him, I left him smelling my hot graphite.

Little red needle nose was hidden away in a plastic Wal-Mart bag while I won the first two heats. Then I guess I was just getting tired or my age was catching up to me. A big blue bully beat me by just a tenth of a second. I took second in the tournament, but me and little red needle nose, were the centerpiece for the table display during the month of May.

The table decoration this year was exquisite. Just me and little red needle nose sitting among a display of flags, flowers, my trophies and surrounded by dishes and bowls of wonderful smelling food.

While the family gathered around for the blessing, a familiar hand reached into the display, picked me up and spun my wheel a couple of times. Before the prayer was finished I was carefully put back in my spot, but with a wet tear on my hood. That familiar hand belonged to the ten year old boy that molded and shaped me from a block of wood in 1967.