The tyranny of grass…

It has taken the best part of two days to mow the lawn and I am not finished yet! Labor is divided between the fun of riding our trusty tractor-mower, Grindl, and the drudgery of pushing the smaller mower to trim under bushes, around trees, and along rock borders where Grindl dare not venture. I was at the latter for nearly three hours today and I am all aches and pains.

When I mow I always think of my dad who hated lawn mowing and managed to foist the task onto my brother and me as a required household chore we performed in return for our weekly allowance. Dad preferred to get his weekend exercise on the golf course (!) and that left Saturdays/Sundays to Tim and me in an endless summer war against the grass.

Tim was quite resourceful: I recall a rope system he invented, circa 1959, so we could more easily (and safely) mow a steep bank in front of our home in Belleville, Illinois. He tied a long rope to the mower, circuited a handy tree trunk, and developed a method by which the two of us could pull the rope ends to run the machine up and down the slope.

Despite detesting the task, as an Air Force colonel dad couldn’t quite neglect its supervision. I remember one sultry Saturday (hotter than hell, actually) when I, then aged fifteen, was manfully at work – Tim by that time having flown the coop. I was mowing the large square lawn in front of our quarters at Dover Air Force Base when dad, still in his bathrobe, rushed out of the house shouting.

 “What are you doing?!”

“Mowing the lawn,” I replied, wondering if the noise had awakened him.

“Like that?” he demanded incredulously, pointing to the neat pattern of concentric squares I’d achieved by mowing the perimeters from each of the four corners in ever-diminishing rectangles.

“It’s more economical,” I stated. “You don’t waste time making all those 180-degree turns.”

He was apoplectic and I guess afraid of what our neighbors would think – although to this day I cannot understand why. “Do it my way or don’t do it at all!”

Alas, if only I really could have taken up that second option!

Dad hated lawns so much that the lack of one was a prime factor for him when he and mom bought what turned out to be their last home in Dover in 1963. The lakefront property, an old-fashioned log cabin where my sister continues to dwell, is so submerged in shade – due to huge oaks and pines – that grass just cannot grow. He thought it was perfect until mother demanded he buy and operate a leaf-mulching gizmo, long past the time when Tim or I could be dragooned.

Ha!