Soapbox Fever: Not Spread By Monkeys

Word was received, via text message at 7:38 this morning, that we have successfully registered a team - "The Fog That Turns People Inside Out" - in the 2005 Adult Soapbox Derby. This will be my first year as an equal share team member, which means the contribution of a small pile of money, some thoughtful comments while someone else works a welding torch, and a couple of exhilarating trips down the hill on the big day in August. Storytelling of previous years' derbies never really stops, but you can imagine that it begins to really hit its stride again at registration time. As Cory, Dave and I embark on actually conceptualizing and building The Fog That Turns People Inside Out, a reprise of last year's story seems in order...

(cue blurry screen and doodly-doo fade back music)

Summer - the sort of idyllic summer that movies and Wham-O advertisements have taught us to adore and anticipate - is painfully, brilliantly short in Portland. It's not unusual for it to be nearly over before you're aware of your growing shadow or the absence of ice cream trucks tinkling 'Oh Susanna' two blocks away (yet never on your block). And every year, by early June, we all cluck our tongues and sigh wearily at our saturated summer calendars. Someone's always getting married, inconveniently, in the swelter of a Hoboken July on the same weekend that someone else has planned the party that will make them infamous. "The mechanical bull ACTUALLY CAUGHT ON FIRE while someone was riding it!"

For one Saturday last July, we happily obligated ourselves, welcoming summer to Portland with the 2004 Adult Soapbox Derby. Quickly: Why is it that when you add the word 'adult' to something, it instantly sounds naughty? Is this just my issue? Because i'm comfortable with that.

This derby is many things, most of them synonymous with dangerous, but it is hardly naughty. It has arguably become one of Portland's greatest homegrown events and it is meticulously organized every year by local volunteers who string together a series of small miracles, resulting in critical permits and port-o-lets. It has an advertising budget that's eclipsed twenty times over by flamboyant events like the Red Bull Flugtag yet it manages to out-charm them by miles.

The derby attracts the fervor of some of my favorite people in this town, people rendered visionary with a welding torch and drill press. Last year, two of them used my garage to finish and store their monster entry - a terrifying, jagged hunk of black steel, plexiglass and pressboard named the Red Menace. Much to the team's delight, the Menace was the only car that year to sport sophisticated, rear-mounted weapons systems. The car's pressurized water cannon and near endless supply of grenade-shaped water balloons were deployed with extreme malice and prejudice, aimed primarily at the slower cars bobbing adorably and helplessly behind it. For the use of my garage, I was rewarded with a spot as the team's designated pusher, allowing me to share in the glory while risking very few of my own guts. In turn, I adopted the threatening persona of "The Pusherman,' only to be foiled by the unknown technical complexities of the t-shirt printing process. No friends, there is no fear or respect reserved for 'The usherman.'

The menace ran a consistent and respectable time, traversing the 1+ mile track in about a minute thirty and giving hope that future Menaces can be both fast and deadly. In the end however, it was another friend's car, the beautiful and cleverly engineered Icarus Rex, that won the day in a blur of red and yellow-winged speed and grace. The movement of this car was, in a word, poetic. I would not be exaggerating if I told you that time itself slowed each time the Icarus roared by, sucking the very air from your lungs as it greedily gathered speed for the finish. Spectacular. See you August 20 on the hill.