June 28, 2000
Mowing: Self-propelled purgatory
By GARRET LEIVA
Herald editor
Funny as it sounds, but a two-cycle engine can have a hypnotic effect on a young boy. How else can you explain why the neighborhood kids come running over when the pull cord engages the motor.
Simply put, I am the Pied Piper with a Sears Craftsman push mower.
Inevitably, right around the time I'm unloading the bagger, the boys' question arises: 'can I mow?' Now the oldest boy has discovered the concept of capitalism and part of me wonders if his generous gesture would turn into a entrepreneurial endeavor before he finished the backyard. While the 5-year-old lives in a more utopian world of childhood, part of me wonders if our dog's tail would be safe from the self-mulching blade.
Instead, I come up with a laundry list of excuses: too hot, hill too steep, blade too sharp, mower too big, too soon before dinner, too soon after dinner, or the fail-safe: does your mother know you two are here? The real reason, however, is too complex for a child's understanding: mowing the lawn is purgatory on earth.
Now some might disagree, to them mowing the lawn is pure hell. Cutting the grass, however, is only a temporary suffering or misery - especially if you set the mower deck a few notches below scalp but above butcher. Besides, it could be worse, you could be snow shoveling your driveway. Although your next-door neighbor with the 6-pack beer gut usually wears a shirt in January.
Mowing the lawn wasn't always a mundane task of adulthood. There was a time when I relished the smell of fresh cut grass in the morning; even if I was the one behind the Briggs and Stratton push mower. Then came the day around 11 years old when my feet left the ground, literally, after being entrusted with the key to the John Deere rider.
I had reached the pinnacle of grass mowing. Sadly, despite having four forward speeds at my disposal, it was only backwards and downhill from here.
The sweet smell of mowed grass truly turned sour with my first summer job. From late May to early August in 1989, I was a State of Michigan Youth Corp leader; which meant I earned $4.95 an hour leading a group of 17 year olds on an exercise in futility. For three months, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 3:15 p.m., we cut the grass behind every guardrail in Iosco County.
Before I turned in my safety glasses and orange vest in August, I had learned three things: right and left euchre bowers (played during our lunch hour), how to drive a three-on-the-tree truck transmission, and that grass stains deeper than jeans and T-shirts. Fescue, Bermuda, Kentucky blue grass - I learned to loath every species, every blade.
There was a moment, two years ago, when I let my guard down as I cut our very own yard for the first time with our very own lawn mower. I think I even smiled as I wiggled my toes in the freshly cut grass. Not surprisingly, my tiny moment of Zen was quickly replaced by the slack-jaw blank stare of realization that I had opened a Pandora's box with that first sprinkling of grass seed.
Of course, being such a mindless task, mowing the lawn affords you the opportunity to ponder perplexing questions of the cosmos. Often times I'll find myself wondering if there are Pork Rinds, why aren't there Pork Melons? What exactly is the "pompatus of love?" Why can't they build the airplane out of the same material as the black box? What is the meaning of life? You know, stuff.
Cutting the grass. It is one of those summer rites of passage gleefully anticipated by many youngsters. That is why I quickly put away the mower whenever I see the neighborhood kids approaching our yard. After all, there is nothing greater than the tingling sensation of expectation, and nothing worse than the slack-jaw realization of a self-propelled purgatory on earth.
Grand Traverse Herald editor Garret Leiva can be reached at 933-1416 or e-mail at gleiva@gtherald.com.