The Lawn More Man (with all due respect to Stephen King)

On Saturdays, or the day prior to the one when lawn waste is picked up, DNA manifests itself with homeowners breaking out lawn mowers, weed-eaters and leaf blowers. Meanwhile, their counterparts in apartment complexes are going to pool parties, where there’s music and dancing, grilled food and chilled beverages, along with the smell of coconut flavored SPF. “Poor saps,” we homeowners think. “They don’t know what they’re missing by renting instead of buying.”

DNA is shaped by both parents to make our personal genetic quilt. There are times, though, when certain genetic receptors malfunction. During these times, the gene racks marked, “factory seconds” and/or “slightly damaged,” suddenly get thrust into the main draft rotation. This, in turn, causes slightly flawed individuals known socially as “politicians” and “developers.”

My DNA, as well as that of a few others, renders us mute when it comes to the following phrase: “It’s just grass. Let it grow how it wants.” We are incapable of letting by lawns be by lawns. No, we have to enhance it, romance it and finance it to keep us within the status quo of our neighborhoods.

My father is Lord of the Lawn. No, he doesn’t go out and dance a fast-paced Irish jig on his grass. He’s Polish. It would be a polka.

His yard has always been top class. If there were commencement ceremonies for yards, his would graduate magna cum lawne. He’s the only man I know who uses a carpenter square to check his edger’s accuracy. Before anyone had conceived of an edger as something you pushed, he used grass shears. On his hands and knees, he would go around the yard, clipping it so the edge of his Bermuda stood at right angles to the sidewalk.

I’ve heard of sod farms trashing an entire harvest after seeing his yard. His grass blades know how they should stand because he is the Grass Whisperer. I have seen moles crying at the yard’s edge because they are enamored by the sight of his beautiful sod and wouldn’t think of disturbing it. Homeowners have moved from his cul de sac because they couldn’t take the pressure, un-implied as it was, of rising to the bar he sets in lawn maintenance.

His relationship to Bermuda grass is directly disproportional to what Donald Trump’s is to hair.

However, I have two parents as most everybody does, except politicians and developers, and this grass growing gene has been diluted by my mother’s side of the family. Mom grew up on a farm. At her earliest opportunity she hastily made way for another life. She packed her suitcase and was off to the big city. Afterwards, her idea of picking cotton was for garments or household accessories from some department store.

Pappaw was a farmer/watch repairman. Whenever he wasn’t in town repairing watches, he was out on his modest farm. To him grass was wasted ornamentation. It was unrefined milk. Cows eat grass. Cows produce milk. It's all a part of the food chain. If due to some environmental quirk, the grass in the field had suddenly dried up and disappeared, Pappaw wouldn’t have had any qualms about turning the cows loose in the front yard, while admonishing the rest of the family to make sure they didn’t pitch over into the ditch.

There were always stories about some form of livestock pitching over into a ditch. Early on, I got the indication that livestock, especially cows, weren’t the brightest animals in the lot. I mean, any animal that's going to let you pull on its udders day in and day out, without exhibiting some sort of resistant behavior has got to be a few curds shy.

You'd think at some point in the evolutionary theater some cow, having become sufficiently fed up with matters, would have stood up and said to a farmer, "Now see here, my good man. This yanking and pulling on my nether regions must stop. What form of amusement or satisfaction do you derive from this behavior? Your forwardness with me can be described as nothing more than the mannerisms of a cad, a scoundrel and a boor, as it was, and I will not allow it to continue any further. I am no strumpet nor tart. Restrain yourself and refrain from this dastardly act or I shall rain terror upon your hind pockets, if you catch my drift."

Quite a high brow cow, eh?

Of course, the whole cow /grass interface is lost on politicians and developers. Politicians would want to tax the cow, tax the farmer for having the cow, tax the land that the farmer has the cow on and then tax the things which the cow would produce. For schools and road improvements, of course. Next thing you know, they’d want cows of their own but with loopholes to escape all the taxes. They want to be cowboys’ in-absentia. Developers on the other hand would say, “Cows? Forget cows! We can buy the farm land cheap, put 160 houses on those 40 acres and have room for apartments with pools. Cows? Aren’t they antiquated by now? Put ‘em in a museum or the zoo.”

All this leads to my predisposition to want to mow myself silly. I panic if something comes up to delay me even a day from mowing. That extra day could mean more mulched grass lying on top of the lawn for all my neighbors to see. This could lead to a formal shunning.

Am I complaining? Heaven forbid! Cutting the grass is like therapy to me. I strap on my portable CD player, place my beverage of choice in the cup holder and I’m off. Listening to the tunes, I’m seat-dancing and foot-stomping, as I ride my way to a halfway decent looking yard. Sure the neighbors probably think I’m off my rocker when I’m singing along to “Long Cool Woman.” We’re talking full frontal lip moving here. I make no pretense about having a good time at every opportunity. I take the much-bandied-about e-mail enticement, “Dance like nobody’s looking,” to heart.

Think that’s something? You ought to see me and my weed-eater.

© 2005 Michael Wicinski