Mowing My Lawn

When I was a boy - and not yet in the intellectual, political, or economic position to negotiate effectively for my rights as an independent contractor - I used to have to do all sorts of chores around the house.

And I didn't get paid a cent.

My dad's theory of child labor seemed to be "Kids are expensive (not to mention a constant pain-in-the-neck) so what's the point of having them if they can't take out the garbage or shovel the driveway or cut the grass?"

Not that I entirely disagree. Especially now that I have a daughter, I understand his reasoning; and I can't wait for the time when I will be able to tell Cady Scout that she has to wash, vacuum, and detail the car before - and after - she takes it to the A&W drive-in for a root beer float (or whatever it is that she will do when she's 16).

My primary complaint as an 11-year-old entrepreneur was that Dad was fundamentally opposed to power tools. So we had a rake instead of a leaf blower and a hand-propelled lawn mower instead of a power lawn mower.

Luckily, our next door neighbor was not a Luddite who believed in the Puritan ethic that children should be not be heard while working, so I talked Mr. Merrill into hiring me to mow his lawn with the power lawn mower he stored in his garage but never used.

I'd mow Mr. Merrill's lawn and then I'd mow our lawn, and I'd still be done sooner than if I had to use our rusty push lawn mower to cut just our grass. And even after I bought enough gas for both lawns and to fill up the tank when I was done, I'd have some money left over.

I still love mowing lawns, but I haven't had a lawn to mow recently. However, when I got back to Vermont this summer, I had a lot of grass that desperately needed my attention.

In my absence, my partner had hired someone to mow; however, she described him as having Mowing Attention Deficit Disorder - sometimes he'd just mow the front lawn, sometimes he'd just do up to the orchard, and sometimes he'd just do the path down to the pond . . . but he never mowed everything at once.

Secretly I smiled when I listened to her complaints, for I know our three acres of lawn better than anybody: I know where the wet spots are, where the roots are, and how to go over the stubborn cattails from two directions in order to knock them down for good.

And I couldn't wait to get back in the saddle of my John Deere on a sunny Vermont day and mow my lawn, which is exactly what I have been doing recently - shades on, shirt off, and cold beverage close at hand.

There's something about the smell of fresh-cut grass that brings me right back to my boyhood when the last thing I wanted to be doing was mowing lawns; I wanted to play Wiffle Ball, to ride my bike, to hunt for snapping turtles sunning themselves on the banks of the pond.

These days, I enjoy mowing my lawn. Maybe this is because I finally have a riding lawn mower, but I think that it probably has more to do with working outside, with returning to something that I know well, and about doing it right.

And I still don't get paid a cent.

--Steve McKibben
7/30/06