I�ve just come from science fair set-up. Right now, the judges are judging based on the displays. In a few hours, they will interview the kids and then the public can wander the fair. As I looked around, I had the strangest thought. Pinewood derby! I was back at the pinewood derby.

When I was a teenager, my brother was a cub scout. My father, the perennial volunteer, went off to the organizational meeting feeling perfectly safe. Everyone knew that cub scouts had den mothers. He figured he was in no danger of being asked to help. But he miscalculated. That troop believed in den fathers and a den father he became. He was supposed to have a co-leader but that guy dropped out pretty fast. Never mind. Dad had another source of help: three teenage daughters.

As everyone who has ever been involved with cub scouts knows, one of the biggest events is the pinewood derby. Each cub scout is given a block of wood and some wheels as well as rules on such things as putting weight on the car and each scout is to make his own car to race in the pinewood derby. The uninformed would expect a bunch of motley cars, many badly painted, many badly cut and, according to Mr. Philately a lot of that happened in Lohrville, Iowa. But not in Teaneck, New Jersey�at least not in the Teaneck of the 1970s. In Teaneck, the child-made cars competed head-on with the cars that obviously were parent-designed and parent-executed. Once in a while, someone would float the idea of two separate pinewood derbies: one for the parents and one for the children.

As I looked around the room this morning, I saw the pinewood derby all over again. Some projects and displays clearly were done entirely by kids. I doubt those projects stand a chance. Other projects, like Kat�s, were done by kids with direction and aid from parents, teachers (and, in her case, the best help of all, Grandpa Science Answer Guy.) A few projects clearly involved materials that the ordinary kid could not get access to. There was one backboard display that was professionally done.

But remembering the pinewood derby reminded me that the pushing, the taking over, and the having too much invested in kids did not start with my generation. We learned it from our parents�and I�m thinking its time to unlearn it.

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