One Little Ornament

One little ornament.

It's not very big. It's not fancy. It's not fashioned of blown glass. Nor is it considered to be of much value... except by me. I remember this ornament. It's been a part of every Christmas holiday. For a very long time. As long and as many as I can remember.

The little ornament hung on many real trees and artificial. It hung under the shade of natural green evergreen needles and silver. It was on the tree when carollers came knocking on our front door. And when my Uncle Richard, dressed-up as Santa, scared the daylights out of me so that I hid under the kitchen table and absolutely refused to come back out to claim my gift. In 1968, this little ornament was on the tree as our tiny black and white television transmitted images of astronauts on Christmas Day, orbiting around the moon for the history-making first time.

It was on the family's tree the Christmas I opened my best space toy ever - a Major Matt Mason astronaut action figure and his Star Seeker capsule. It witnessed my first Hot Wheels raceway set, and then a super-charged Sizzlers set. It was already getting old when I received a toy Batmobile all shiny new. And a Houdini magic set. A Cookie Monster hand puppet. And then all those Star Wars toys that came later.

This ornament saw our family temporarily shrink in size after my sister got married and moved out of town, and then grow again with three nieces and a nephew. And it was hanging there for Junior's very first Christmas too.

It hung there, a silent witness through Christmases of both good times and rough. In sickness and in health, 'til death took some away. And since this ornament originally belonged to my Mom, she's in affect still decorating our family Christmas tree.

I wasn't even Five years old. I remember looking at this ornament in wonder at it's simple molded plastic detail. It told a story. Joseph and Mary and the new-born Jesus in the manger. And how well I already knew that story. It's the story of what Christmas is all about.

Yep. She may have not known it, but my Mom sure got her 10 cents worth out of that one little plastic ornament ;)

Have an Aluminum Christmas This Year!

It's the return of Grandma's Regal Sapphire aluminum tree, with the tinsel mechanically attached for that perfect hi-tech look!

Ahhh, all those Christmas seasons that I remember helping Grandma set-up and decorate this very tree. And what a spectacle it was, displayed in the corner of the living room near the kitchen entryway. The color wheel light endlessly casting reflections of red, blue and green, dance on the silvery needles. Soon it would be sheltering a colorful horde of presents, professionally wrapped ones by the retailers too!

When the first aluminum trees burst upon the scene in the 1950's, many people scoffed at the idea, and only treated as a fad by others. But not my Grandma. Unlike the nay-sayers and scoffers who never understood, Grandma "got it." And fortunately for later-comers like me, she still got it well into the 1970's so that I too could honestly claim that I had "gotten it" as well.

Today the Tree made of aluminum tinsel is enjoying renewed acceptance, not so much as a kitschy fad but more and more as trendy stylin'. In fact the trend has been gaining enough momentum that retails have taken notice and have been offering brand new renditions of the metallic icon in a whole host of color variations. What was old is new again!

So here's to you, Grandma and your forward-thinkingness... and thank you for all those memories you made that still keep me going forward today!

The Derby Tradition is a Family Tradition

Brother's 1957 Pinewood Derby Car

As some of you may know by now, Junior is active in the Scouts. Really active...

So far we've (because the dad's are supposed to be partners with their boys) been to weekend camp outs with several thousand other scouts, a couple parties, and a banquet with entertainment performed with Junior's help. He's helped clean a lake, studied science, nature, geology, history and how to properly respect the Flag. For a month he had to follow an excercise routine and show steady improvement. He can now read a map. Recently he's taken classes in First Aid and knows how to treat everything from snakebite to shock to performing the Heimlich Maneuver on a choking victim. I've been lucky not to have any of these performed on me yet!

This past weekend Junior participated in an annual event which has become a tradition with young American boys since the mid 1950's. It's his Scout Pack's Pinewood Derby. It's not his first derby – he's got two church-sponsored events under his belt – but this is his first time to have the grand experience where it all began, with the Scouts.

Page 59 in the October 1954 issue of Boys Life magazine, featuring the story of the first pinewood derby race

The first pinewood derby was the idea of Don Murphy, a Cub master in Manhattan Beach, California, back in 1953. His young son who was a cub scout who wanted in the worst way to try soapbox car racing which was a popular hobby with older boys at the time. Soapbox involved building a homemade car to compete in a sponsored race downhill. Since Don's son was a bit too young for soapbox, the Cub master came up with the idea of building miniature cars for all his scouts to race. He had his scouts and their fathers together shape cars from wood. Some fathers built a 31-foot race ramp with two lanes and a battery-run finish line made from doorbells and rigged with red and white lights to identify the winner.

Fifty-five Cub Scouts participated in that first Pinewood Derby race in 1953 and the event was a hit – not only with the young scouts, but their dads too (imagine that!).

This is an example of a Soapbox Derby racer which inspired the Scouts Pinewood Derby racers. Soapbox competitions were very popular in the 1950's, the one shown above was built by a cousin.

Like wildfire it grew and thanks to publicity provided by Boys Life magazine, spread to packs all over the country. Within a year the pinewood derby was adopted for use in all Cub Scout packs. By 1955 an official supplier was found to make ready-to-build kits containing nails, wheels and a block of white pine to carve anyway the young builder could imagine. From the start, Don intended the derby cars to be done as a father/son project, too. It grew, the annual races went from being a side event to becoming their own premier event. And generally the rules for the competition have stayed the same as Don Murphy had first laid them down.

Brother (playing the jug) and his Scout Den, circa 1957

All this means that when my own brother was a Cub Scout in 1957, the derby was still a fairly new deal, he was lucky to participate in the big event. Dad had helped him shape the body by taking it to work with him and using the electric equipment of the sign shop... Good ol' Dad! How did he do? He walked away with the bragging rights to First Place in "Best of Show." The trophy was simply a typewritten "plaque glued to a wooden base painted silver, but it was still a big deal to win it!

Junior's modern derby car kit

From what I've been able to piece together, the derby car kits themselves perhaps changed the most over the years. First the original wood block was changed to a length of 7" even. Some sources say around 1973 the block swapped its height for width, resting the wider dimension flat so as to resemble modern racer designs more closely. In 1977, the wooden struts were moved to the axle position used today, and then removed completely in 1980, leaving a solid pine block. The big notch cut out of the block for the "cockpit" would also eliminated. The wheels also changed from skinny wheels to a wider tread around this time.

And what does all that mean? It means when I was a Webelos scout in the 70's, that my derby car was a bit of the old mixed with the new. When Dad asked how I wanted to design it I said I wanted it to look just like my big brother's car from 17 years earlier... I had a big case of envy for that thing. So we shaped it together in Dad's workroom on a sanding wheel. It was one of my first experiences working with dad using big power tools. When all was done, I had my dream car. And when comparing cars at the next den meeting I was also the only scout in my den with a 50's style racer! But it looked good in it's shiny blue paint and a racing stripe down the center made of metallic tape. I even accessorized it with a pair of exhaust pipes taken off a toy car. It left some of the other kids filled with the envy bug because when we next met up the night of the race, they'd tricked-out their own racers too!

On derby night the whole Pack met, all the Cub and Webelos scouts in our neighborhood, which maybe amounted to no more than a dozen or so kids all together. Our pack was small! I was feeling very proud and optimistic, that is until much to my horror, the cool exhaust detailing on my derby car had to be snapped off because they extended out too far for the race track. So much for showing-off the best-looking car! By the way, our raceway was very, very simple compared to Don Murphy's back in '53. The track ramp was fashioned from a couple of plywood planks sloping straight out for about 16 feet. And there were no electric lights to at the bottom to indicate the first car to reach the finish, it was all eyeballed by volunteers. And I'm still grumbling because I'd swear that my racer beat that other kid's to the finish line first! Oh well.... it was sudden death elimination in those days. My derby days were over before they barely got started... the story of my life!

Now fast forward to the present. 53 years after the very first pinewood derby began by a Cub leader, Don Murphy. By now more than 90 million Pinewood Derby car kits have been sold since. And the event has long become synonymous with the Scouts. Saturday afternoon Junior finally got his opportunity to compete with almost 40 fellow racers (at the very same church activity center where, some umpteen years ago, I was doing the same thing with my scout pack in fact). He proudly showed off his racer, the one that both his dad (me!) and uncle helped him build. For today's meet, a computer was used to automatically keep tabs on each racers time. The brand new derby track was around 40 feet long, a perfectly smooth aluminum construction officially sanctioned by the Scouts... and with electric sensor beams at the finish line. Each and every racer got to complete in at least 4 heats, once in each of the four lanes, so as to be as perfectly accurate and fair as possible. It's all about the kids having fun.

Junior had a blast.

Junior's Big Day at the Pinewood Derby

By the way, those TWO trophies that Junior brought home at the end of the day? They definitely were not fashioned out of a couple of small wooden blocks painted silver ;)

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Are you interested in more? For more on the beginnings of the very first derby, Pinewood Derby History is a great place to start.

Pinewood Derby Times has a nice timeline explaining the changes made to the derby car kit since the Fifties.

Those Outer Space PJ's

A little late, but I knew there's was a shot our two of my beloved Outer Space Rocket pajama's... the best sleepwear a kid ever had! I was 5 years old in this shot and I've got my little junior tool kit (the kind that came with a rubber saw, a screw driver and a real hammer!) I also have it filled up with expended flash cubes that dad gave to me because I thought they were pretty cool at the time.

What's in Your Backyard?

So the Jones' are at it again. So they think that the new swing set they had installed for little Timmy is the best in the whole neighborhood, eh? And now Jone's keeps rubbing it in how sorry your own Junior's tire-swing is. Well you'll show HIM who should do the bragging... Just wait until the delivery truck brings this to your front door!

It wasn't supposed to be an ongoing series, but I have an update to my posts last summer on the influence of Mid-Century design and fads on children's playground equipment. But this has to be added! The very retro-looking robot slide above was taken from an manufacturer's catalog dated to the 1970's, obviously still influenced by the space-madness of the 50's and 60's. If you Google "robot playground" it appears that there's still one or two surviving examples hopefully still out there intriguing young and old alike today. So sad that a bunch of busy-bodies had to tear down most all this wonderful equipment from our city parks and school playgrounds as being unsafe. Silly adults!

But on to the link that I've included! Along with Giganta there's a rocket slide, lunar lander and a very Trekkie looking starship jungle gym. Now I'm not exactly sure where these images were originally posted, but I've seen this catalog first at Retro Playground Equipment @ Plaid Stallions along with other swell examples of jungle gyms shaped like castles, tugboats and a few which, umm, may be hard to describe.

The Divine Caroline.com article has a large number of additional images: rocket slides, barrel runs... all kinds of goodies to get the inner-child all excited. So just follow the link if you're ready for more. But be warned - there's much packed on this site in 3-parts... 70's Playgrounds @ DivineCaroline.com