Most Likely Done by Scout  I have the Cub Scout fathers to thank
for our pickle car. After a few years of losing the Pinewood
Derby races to cars that seem awfully well made for, say, a
seven-year-old to have created, my boys gave up. They couldn’t
compete with 40-year-old men with well-stocked workshops, so now
they go for the Funniest category instead of the Fastest. Only,
I’m not laughing.  "Guess what we won!" my nine-year-old
exclaimed with mock excitement. He’d just walked in the door
after this year’s Pinewood Derby race, a Cub Scouts tradition
where the boys fashion their own miniature cars out of wood and
then race them down tracks in the school gym.  "What?" I
answered, afraid to ask.  "Nothing!" he and his brother laughed
in unison, before putting down their cars—one shaped like a
pickle and one like a pack of gum—and going off to play.  Well,
that was easier to take than the disappointment of previous
Pinewood Derby races when my sons, new to Cub Scouts, learned a
valuable life lesson: Some people