The Mower

It wasn’t the first sign of summer. For us, that was usually the first time we saw baseball cards on the store shelves…or, the first time it was warm enough (according to us, not Mom) for us to break out the whiffle balls and bats and start playing in the street. Then, the actual baseball season would start and summer, never far from our minds, would begin to move to the center of them.

But. That sound. There are a lot of things, to this day, that I still associate with summer because of my childhood in the old neighborhood. And, right at the top of that list is the sound of a lawn mower. The neighborhood had dozens of houses and all of those houses had yards, and that meant, at any given moment when the grass in Western PA was growing, you might hear the roar of a mower engine. Or, a barely-perceptible hum. Depending on how far away the yard in need of a trim was.

But, all summer long, we heard that sound. Because, all summer long, we were outside. And, if we happened to be in the house for some reason, well. Nobody in the neighborhood had central air, and that meant the windows were open all summer. So, yeah. We heard that mower and knew that somewhere within hearing distance, somebody was cutting the grass. And, the first time you heard it…time for a digression.

I remember this like it was yesterday. I was a little kid, maybe six or seven. It was cool outside, sometime in October. I was planning to go out, but at the moment, I was playing on the floor of my bedroom and I smelled something burning. I immediately went out to the kitchen and found Mom and asked about the smell. She laughed and said, “That’s just the furnace kicking on. You’re only noticing it because it’s the first time it’s come on in months. Pretty soon, you won’t even notice it.”

As almost always, Mom was right. Soon enough, in a couple of days, I’d become nose blind to the smell of the furnace and, eventually, I didn’t notice even the sound or the air flow when it came on. It was fall/winter/early spring after all, and the furnace was running regularly. But, back to the summer.

The first time I heard that lawn mower, almost always in early April, after the baseball cards and the start of baseball season and almost always after we’d broken out the whiffle ball equipment, it was…jarring. Wait. Is that a lawn mower? Because, I hadn’t heard one since not long after Hallowe’en. But, someone was mowing the grass. And, three things always went through my head, almost simultaneously. Summer was getting nearer. I was going to be hearing that sound a lot. And, soon enough, Dad would be starting the yard work season…with my help. Three things. One good. One neutral. The third? Not good at all.

Summer, of course, was great. It was, by far, our favorite time of year, even beating out the Christmas season, because, summer meant we were, pretty much, free of all responsibilities, not just for a couple of weeks, but for months at a time. The mower sound was a lot like the smell of the furnace. You noticed it at first, and then it kind of receded into the background unless it was coming from right next door or across the street. The yard work? Well. That was the “pretty much” stone in my “free of all responsibilities” shoe.

From a young age, Dad always requested my help with the yard work. At first, being a little kid, said “help” involved only two very safe jobs, using the pre-weed whacker clippers to trim the grass along the fence line and the sidewalk, and raking after Dad was finished mowing. When I got old enough that Dad was pretty certain I wouldn’t permanently maim myself, using the sickle was added to the jobs list. And, it was downhill from there.

The back of our property was a hillside that had been terraced by the previous owners and that hillside was bordered by a sidewalk. There were, as you might imagine, plenty of weeds growing at the top of the hill among the trees and bushes. And, cutting those weeds back from the sidewalk was my job. Also my job was picking up all the papers, bottles, and cans that were tossed there by the ruffians in the neighborhood (read: my buddies), who made use of the fact that, while many of the other lots had buildings at street level and others were simply grassy slopes, ours was filled with vegetation and the sight line from the yard was blocked by trees. So, yeah, just toss that empty Coke bottle and the empty bag of pretzels into the weeds rather than carry it home to the garbage. No one will see.

So, there was the raking and the trimming and the weed cutting, and all that was ushered in by that first mower sound. And, later, there would be mowing as well. At some point, Dad figured I was old enough to be the one creating that sound, the one that still reminds me of childhood summers to this day. He pulled me aside one April Saturday and told me I was old enough to begin using the mower. He gave detailed instructions, and, soon enough, the work around the yard was all mine. But. Not just around the yard.

Dad had purchased an empty lot about a five minute walk from the house. Plans were to build a new house on it, those plans, however, never came to fruition. But, as the lot was, basically, a yard with no house on it, that meant yard work. Dad and I had done the work together for several years, with the two of us loading the lawn mower and sickles into the back of the car, tying the trunk shut with twine, and driving up to the place to take care of the grass and weeds.

When the job became mine, however, things changed, because, well, I was too young to drive. Now, if I’d wanted to wait until the weekend, I’m sure Dad would have driven me up there, but, this was my summer and I didn’t want to have any more of it than necessary taken up with yard work. So, I’d get up early on the day in question, before the guys would be around, put a sickle in my back pocket, and a gas can in my hand and push the mower up the hill to the lot. I’d shove the thing into the middle of the property and go to work with the sickle. When that was done, I’d handle the mowing, always in a big square with the sides getting smaller and smaller as I went (and the exhaust pointed away from the center of the square, shooting the cut grass into already-mowed areas…a handy dandy trick I’d learned from Dad). I almost always had to fill the gas tank before I was finished. But, when I was finally done, after a small break, I’d allow myself a little treat, taking another walk, this one to the old PX, where I’d get an ice cold soda.

My trips to the lot were as regular as clockwork, and, here’s why. Dad had a grass cutting theory from which he never deviated. In the spring and early summer, April, May, June, the grass had to be cut every week. Once July hit and things got drier, you could go two weeks between mowings. So, I’d go and mow the property and tell Dad, “I went to the lot today and cut the grass.” And, Dad would say, “Thanks, son. I appreciate that.” And, the following week (or, later in the year, two weeks later), I’d hear, “I went by that lot today. The grass is getting a little high.” Or, “Were you up at the lot today? I noticed the grass was cut.” Yeah. The first observation meant “Shag your butt up to the lot tomorrow and get the grass cut.” The second meant, “Good job, I didn’t have to tell you to shag your butt up to the lot and cut the grass!” And, any argument about putting off the next mowing would be met with a shake of the head and the same admonition. “You have to keep after it, son, because, the higher it gets, the harder it is to mow.” And, as always, Dad was right. But, that didn’t make me any happier.

But, while Dad had his theory on lawn care, he also had two, and, later, three kids and realized that he wasn’t going to have a lawn that looked like a golf course. Between the two of us, we kept the grass cut and the weeds to a minimum, but Dad was not, as he derisively referred to some other folks in the neighborhood, a “yard nut”. Like the guy who lived across the street. OK. To be fair, he was not a “yard nut”. He was just a nut.

Now, unlike our house, which sat on a double lot and, therefore, had a big yard, the Nut’s yard was about the size of a postage stamp. The house sat in the middle of said lot, and next to it on the left side was a paved driveway that led to a garage. Both the garage and the house sat up against a hillside, not one that was terraced like ours, but a steep slope. To the left of the house was a small patch of grass that ended at the next door neighbor’s driveway. In front of the house was a large tree that he trimmed, each year, to within an inch of its life, and another small patch of green bordered by hedges between the grass and the sidewalk. And, that was the extent of the “yard” the nut obsessed about, but, obsess he did.

From about the time the last of the snows melted until they were threatening to return, the Nut, who had an electric mower (which did not make the familiar sound of the gas mowers we’re discussing) and an extension cord that, had it been stretched completely, would have reached from the Postage Stamp Yard to, oh, Saturn, would be out mowing. And, while, if the Nut had been smart (and, he was many things, but smart was absolutely not one of them), the entire mowing process would have taken about ten minutes, well. It was far more involved than that.

Remember that hillside that sat at the back of the Nut’s house? Well, when we first moved in when I was two years old, that hill had been, like most of the others on our street, wooded. But, the Nut had different plans. Slowly but surely, he cut down all the trees. And pulled all the stumps. And, created the world’s steepest golf course behind his house. So that he could spend summers climbing to the top of this mountain with the electric mower and using the would-stretch-to-Saturn extension cord as a rope to slowly work the mower down the mountain side and then pull it back up only to lower it again. Year after year, we all watched as the Nut mowed the mountain side. Until, one wet spring, the pigeons of his deforestation came home to roost. With nothing to hold the dirt, the entire hillside collapsed onto the back of his house. And, he got exactly zero sympathy from the rest of the neighborhood. Because. The Nut was that guy.

He was the guy who would take your ball if it went into his yard. Because, of course, he didn’t want you befouling his tiny golf course with your profane presence. So, any time a ball went into his yard, one of us would sprint in there, grab it, and race out…whether the Nut was around or not. Because, the Nut was, like Big Brother, always watching you. Oh, he might not be out in the yard or on his porch, but, if he was at home, he was probably sitting looking out the window. (No, I am not kidding.) So, when you ran into that yard, rest assured, before you made it out, he’d be at the door screaming at you.

It didn’t take long before every kid in the neighborhood knew about the Nut. And hated the Nut. And looked on with shock and amusement when, one afternoon, a kid who’d just moved into the neighborhood rode his bike right through the yard with the Nut sitting on his porch, bringing forth a stream of invective and loads of laughter from us. But, that was just one of many incidents, some funny at the time, others funny with decades of distance firmly in place.

Once, one of my friends lost a brand new football to the Nut and his yard (which became known, derisively, as The Forbidden Zone) and went home to tell his mother. And, said friend’s mother, one of the sweetest people you could ever meet, could have an edge when she wanted to. And, the Nut got the full brunt of that, as she marched up the street and let him have it with both barrels, dish towel still draped over her shoulder.

A similar incident, involving the infamous electric mower, went even more poorly for the Nut. We were tossing a Frisbee and it went in the Postage Stamp Yard while the Nut was mowing. A friend reached in to get the Frisbee and grabbed it as the nut feigned (???) running over his hand with the mower! No, I am not kidding. The friend snatched his hand away at the last second and headed up the street. We all knew where he was going. We could have sold tickets.

He came back with his father…who was absolutely no one to mess with. To say the Nut’s life flashed before his eyes at that moment would not have been to exaggerate one iota. In fact, bets were taken on whether he would be alive when the confrontation ended. He was. And he was lucky. He was also an absolute looney, as the next story demonstrates.

A different friend with a new football stars in this one. There was snow on the ground and the ball went into The Forbidden Zone. Of course, it was cold out, so the Nut was not in evidence. As a result, an argument started about who had to go in and get the ball. You threw it! You missed it. Like that. All of a sudden, the door opens and there he is and the kid who owned the football took off. He and the nut arrived at about the same time and both of them dived in the snow for the ball. Now, this was a guy in his 60s or 70s. And he literally dove into the snow to get a kid’s football. He came up with it, got up, covered with snow, and ordered my friend out of his yard. Again. He lived. And, he was lucky. Because, there was homicide in all of our eyes.

And, the Nut was committed to his efforts, believe me. A favorite trick of his, if he saw us playing ball in the street, would be to take his car out of the garage or driveway and park it in the street in front of his house. What he figured he’d accomplish by doing this, I’m sure, was getting us to move away from his house and play somewhere where no cars were parked. And, the first few times, that’s what happened. Eventually, though, we became as determined as he was, and we just kept on playing. And, hey, if a ball hit his car, it hit his car. It was on public property.

Like with the car, the rest of the Nut’s Draconian efforts to keep the Postage Stamp Yard looking like the 13^th green at Olde Stonewall did more harm than good. If he’d simply requested nicely that we stay out of his yard and keep off his grass as much as possible, we’d have done that…because, that’s what we did with the rest of the neighbors. If a ball went into a yard, we went and got it, and that was the extent of it. We kept our playing to the streets and our own yards. But. If he wanted to play rough, well. We could play rough. And, we did.

We took every opportunity to make his life miserable. Find some dog droppings lying around? Find something to scoop them up with and toss them in The Forbidden Zone. (We once filled an entire McDonald’s French fry container with said droppings and threw the whole thing into his yard.) Rotten fruit? Toss it in. Any piece of nasty garbage we could find was destined for the Postage Stamp Yard, even if we needed to squirrel it away somewhere and wait until he wasn’t around or until we had the cover of darkness. Once. Well. I need one more brief digression.

More firecrackers were lit off in our neighborhood than in Beijing during a New Year’s celebration. And, not just around the Fourth of July. Any time of the year, and, pretty much, any time of the day or night, one of the neighborhood ruffians (again, my buddies) could be lighting off some firecrackers. Yes. They were illegal. No. That did not stop us…or even slow us down. Do you know where this is going?

Firecrackers. We could get hold of them any time we wanted. And, the idea of mixing firecrackers and The Forbidden Zone was oft discussed, but nothing came of it, because like most of our plans, these were always grandiose and unworkable. But, in this case…something eventually did happen. It wasn’t some large, well-planned deal, though. A few of the guys simply had some firecrackers and decided a good place to light them off would be right under the Nut’s windows. They snuck into The Forbidden Zone under the cover of darkness, lit a bunch of firecrackers and smoke bombs, threw them, and raced away. By the time the Nut made his porch, the yard looked like Beirut, and the battle scars on the Postage Stamp yard were plenty visible the next day, with areas of grass burned and blackened.

And, the beauty of it all was that he knew without a doubt that we were responsible for all of it, the fireworks and the trash. However. There was nothing he could do about it, because he couldn’t catch us doing it. But, despite his inability to stop us, never once was an attempt made to make peace. No, he just kept escalating, and so did we. Well. What do you expect out of a guy whose lawn mower doesn’t even make the right sound?