Sand Shark recovery program

When we last heard from our team of model builders, the feckless father had just melted the Sand Shark model to the top of the toaster oven, destroying two children's and one father's work of decades in an instant. (For those that are keeping track, it's myself as a child, my son, and me as an adult working together on a the same damn project for over 30 years. No wonder I have so many open items on my to do list.)

My apology was accepted after some pleading and a flurry of excuses and we went to Toy-R-Us for another model. They were useless - all of two models. At Michaels we seemed to hit pay dirt with a '34 Ford model, but once we got home it turned out to be WAAAY too complicated.

Fortunately, my son remembered that I had yet another model or two that I'd schlepped down from my parents' place. We dug it out and found that I'd started that one too. We didn't see models like this one in either store we looked at - It's simpler. You don't have to paint if you don't want to since the parts come in a few basic colors and the parts count is maybe 100, rather than 200-300. To top it off, the "new" old model was also a '34 Ford. I actually remember starting and then stalling out the model because I put the front axle on backwards and gave up hope of ever making it right after much hand wringing. Well, we fixed that axle and a bunch of other stuff and got it ready for show time at the "county fair" in just a few days time.

Unfortunately, it was not given a prize ribbon when, according to my son, "all the other crafts got prize ribbons." Indeed, he came home with two blue ribbons for his other projects in categories like "Most Best Leaves" for the bean plant and "Best Hand Work" for the wooden toolbox. I told him to ask his teacher for another prize ribbon and tell her he had to work extra hard because his Dad melted the first model.

I wonder if anyone else has second thoughts about our penchant for rewarding all the kids equally? When everyone gets first place ribbons, then what's the point?