Clouds and Soapboxes

In the spirit of living in the moment, our family wound its way north to the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle last Saturday to join friends for the Soapbox Derby. In my never-fail underestimation of things, we lounged around the pizza place till right before the race started; then headed out to find a spot to watch, only to find that the crowd had multiplied exponentially in the time we'd eaten our slices and told tales. Every tall person in the metro area (and there are a lot) seemed to have landed a spot along the front line of the race course -- and none was giving way to children or their parents. Our daughter sat on Frank's shoulders to watch the proceedings until a space opened up at the rail. Considering that Frank and I are not tall, this put her about even with some of the folks up front. Eventually, however, with potty breaks and the sprinkling of rain, the tree people weeded out, and we all got spots at the rail for watching the proceedings.

Understand, this isn't the Boy Scouts' soapbox derby. These are costumed grown-ups in the equivalent of un-motorized mini-floats launching themselves and their vehicles down a ramp, through a fairly steep curve, and down a hill on one of Seattle's city streets for several blocks, and into a pile of hay bales where a panel of judges score them ruthlessly.

The ever-flowing (and occassionally crashing) silliness fed our souls. One team's entry didn't make it out of the first curve, so the driver RAN to the finish line. There was a giant pickle, a rhino with wiggling feet, a sushi roll, a gorilla driving a banana, a dentist in a tube of toothpaste, and thirty plus other entries. We didn't make it for the entire race. The teams went one at a time, made little speeches, did little song and dance routines, and then rolled down the hill. It took a L-O-N-G time to get to #10 (or however many we saw).

Oh, how we need these moments of creative revelry. It's lovely to know this is normal for our daughter.