Lawn Mowing II
The source for the original story was a Boys Life or some similar kind of publication, except that I recall it being in a book. The idea of a short story in a book, in some kind of an anthology for “Young Adults,” but I think the category used to be “adolescent,” again, the names and taxonomy might not be well-remembered. The nomenclature, too, is wrong , as I might’ve been “tween” at the time. That tracks with the footprints in my mind.
The bane of the bookseller’s experience, “I’m looking for a book that was about this big, cover was dark green, and I don’t know the title or the authors.” No artifact to point to, and the only reason I keep a library at home, but that’s a different equation with its own inherent balance point. The story in question, the tale itself was about a cranky old man neighbor, and the kid who lived next door, and at this point the details are too dim to make out, but it was an old man, a kid and a lawn mower. Kid was cutting lawns for summer money, best guess, and at this point, it is a guess. What I recall was the feeling of the tale, as there plot unfolded with the kid always trying hard to please the old man. In recollecting that story, money was the object, a perfect lawn cutting was worth $5.
Kid only got $5 once, at the end of the story. There’s the high note where this should end, but no, and I might have the numbers wrong; however the singular price stuck in my head. The circle remains, and around the same age as that protagonist, although I was probably younger, but not by much, I spent a portion of a summer mowing my grandfather’s backyard. It was an edenic garden-like paradise, carefully sculpted and cultivated in a suburban plot, a little triangle of an outdoor space. My maternal grandmother caused cultivation, as in, there were flowers and green, sprouting things of all manner and ilk, creating a space that was truly a biblical paradise.
My nemesis was the old gas-powered lawn mower, and I lacked upper-body strength to get that two-stroke going. It was a loud, crude, belching and cantankerous affair, aging and near-death. I could start it, but I had to brace myself, and on more than occasion, my grandfather came out and got it on the first pull. Perhaps there’s a reverence for elders that I don’t recall from the origins, thinking it all through, even now.
The starter cord wasn’t attached, as popular mythology and current design dictates, but it was a loose piece of cord, knotted on both ends, with a wooden peg on one, making a T-shaped pull of sorts. I can remember one time getting that motor started on the first wrenching try.
Like that story, the goal was a $5 lawn job, and I think I made $4.75 at best. In the story, there was much detail about the way the kid doubled-back, over-lapping the previous cut to get a more even distribution, and reduce the appearances of the wheel’s indentation. That recollection centered on a short story from the mists of time, then from obsequies performed at the behest of family for pay, and from that, it jumps ahead to my longest time at university.
Nimbly put 20 years in between instances.
The last few years in Arizona, I lived in a small suburban house near campus. Less than a mile, I think, have to look that up, but it was a walking distance for me, easy. The house had a yard, and I didn’t want a mower that was gas-powered because I didn’t want to have to try and lug a gallon of gas back while I was on foot. Just seemed wrong. I had a push mower, bought new with the house, and I used that. Fairly effective, as long as I did it on a regular basis, and being Arizona, that was pretty much weekly. Lots of sun, not a lot of rain, due to the strong summer sun in Arizona, I had to mow as often as a little more than weekly, best guess for a moment’s reverie.
Pushing that mower through the grass, and it varied, under the big trees, that winter grass was ever-present, never quite baked out by the sun, but the rest of the yard was the gnarled, prickly Bermuda with a previous attempt at St. Augustine lingering in places. Mostly, though, just that dense mat of lawn, or rather, mostly root mass with vague green tips.
For several years, that was my meditation, and I didn’t think about that story, or the way it was acted out in real life with me, mowing the lawn and making sure the clippings were evenly distributed, nor how that looked. Or the real source, as piece of art as a child.
The lawn in Arizona, it was the part of living in house with a yard, and having a cat, getting up at first light and drinking coffee, all by myself. Mostly there was preponderant lack of furniture or any kind of implication that I made the house my own. Wrapping up that undergraduate degree while being an allegedly fully functional adult was new to me — both the degree and the fully functional adult.
Mowing the lawn was part of the joy, and the fact that it was more meditative than I thought it was, might have to do with the way I was shaped by the time I arrived elsewhere. Which isn’t what this is about.
It’s about mowing the lawn and doing a good job. I don’t think I’ve lived anyplace else, since then, where I had to mow a lawn, and one wonders, if that is by happenstance or design.
