Man And Mower

The photograph you see accompanying this blog is a man and a lawnmower. The mower is partially obscured, but it is there, on the grass, ready to serve. The man has yet to master the Art of the Selfie. He wanted to get more of the mower into the frame, but he couldn’t seem to get the coordinates just right, no matter how many times he tried. Selfies require a delicate balance of height, angle, light and framing. Dammit….

It’s a beautiful little mower, though. A battery-powered Greenworks 40V 16″ Cordless that is quiet and humble, inexpensive and tough, and gets the job done without complaint (or carbon emissions). The man really likes this mower, and looks forward to a long and fruitful relationship. The man took time out from his lawn-cutting duties to take a series of selfies that show the man’s face in varying states of doofusness. He has clearly lost his edge in the vanity department…

But the mower? Ain’t it the grooviest thing?

*****

Here is something I rarely talk about but still believe to this day:

My favorite employee job was cutting grass at the Treetop Apartments complex in southwest Charlotte, spring and summer of 1980, when I was between universities, and had about as much ambition as a corpse in a bong shop.

The apartment complex was fairly large, with three different sections. My job was as follows:

1. Push my lawnmower over the grass at Section 1 on Monday, Tuesday and part of Wednesday.
2. Push my lawnmower over the grass at Section 2 during the rest of Wednesday and Thursday.
3. Push my lawnmower over the grass at Section 3 (the smallest) on Friday.
4. Repeat.

We had five people in our crew, plus the maintenance manager. Three of the five were grungy stoners from Michigan who had moved South for the sunshine and the weed. Their names were Bock, Brian and Beak. Bock and Brian were brothers; Beak was their cousin. Bock got his name from the massive quantities of beer he could drink. Beak got his name because of his prodigious nose. Brian got his name because his name was Brian.

They were decent guys, although Bock was a weird combination of smartass, dumbass, and wise sage. They lived right there at the apartment complex and probably got a break on rent because they worked there.

Their whole lives involved waking up, getting high, eating junk food, cutting grass, getting high, eating junk food, clocking out, heading to the 7-11 for beer and more junk food, then spending their evenings getting hammered.

The other person in our five-person crew was a revolving door of one dude after another. I can’t remember our boss’s name, but he was no problem as bosses go. At lunch they played poker in the maintenance shed while I chilled out in my car.

Man, what a brilliant job that was. It was just me, the mower, and the grass. The same thing every day. Outside in the sun, out among the trees. It was a job that required no thinking, and one that you didn’t have to think about again until the next workday. The boss left me alone. The other crew members did their own thing. Bock and Brian had riding mowers, Beak pushed this bigass mower, and I pushed a smaller, more agile one.

All I did, all day long, was push a mower over grass. There was zero pressure and zero strategizing and zero creativity and zero stress. The pay was probably minimum wage, but I didn’t care. It kept me in beer and fast food, gassed up my car, allowed me to take the occasional cheap road trip with my buddies, and allowed for a modicum of savings. Since I was still living at home, that was pretty much all I needed.

As I said, it was probably my favorite “employee” job of all time – “employee” being the key word there, since it means I worked for someone else. These days I am a free-lance writer, an independent contractor, working for myself, with no boss – the greatest GD thing ever. Take the boss out of the equation, and I like just about any job.

I’m not sure the Treetop Apartments are still around. I haven’t seen Beak, Brian or Bock since leaving that job nearly 44 years ago.

But I still like cutting grass……

*****

When we lived in London, we had a back garden with a grassy patch about the size of a postage stamp. There was an electric lawnmower on the premises and you could cut the grass in about 63 seconds. Herewith said yard and mower:

When we moved back to the States, we bought a house with a typical sized suburban front and back yard. So, I bought a battery-powered mower, a battery-powered trimmer, and a battery-powered leaf blower. I love the battery-powered lawn equipment. It’s cheaper, quieter and more convenient than the gas-powered models, better for the environment, and you don’t have to keep a gas can around the house.

The last time I bought a gas-powered mower was never. I didn’t buy my first mower  until 2008, when my wife and I moved into our first house. I bought a battery-powered mower then and have been sold on them ever since.

Many of our neighbors here in New Jersey hire lawn crews to do their lawns. The lawn crews have huge machines that make the loudest racket you have ever heard – including those obnoxious, Satanic, gas-powered leaf blowers that are loud enough to drown out a heavy metal concert. Lord, how I detest them. F’ing menace to society.

Anyway…..

*****

I am now back to doing yardwork on a regular basis, every week, just like I did before. It’s one of those chores that I’m not exactly excited to get around to but don’t mind doing, either. It really depends on how busy I am with work. If work’s not too crazy, then I can chill out and enjoy cutting the grass.

I still get a certain Zen calm out of cutting grass, walking back and forth, back and forth, moving mower over lawn. I clear my mind of thoughts. I feel the sun and smell the grass and enjoy the breeze when there is one. The trees just stand there, being trees, proud and strong, giving their all, asking nae in return. There are no emails or texts or phone calls assaulting me. I can ignore humanity because I’m cutting the grass, and there is this unspoken rule that you don’t bother someone when they are cutting the grass.

We set up garden boxes of vegetable plants in the back patio – tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, green onions, spinach, herbs of various varieties. I look at the garden when I cut the back yard and allow myself a smile, because growing veggies is also something I love. Nature is a wondrous thing, no?

It’s been many years since I had a daily relationship with the dirt and grass and trees and plants – seven years, pre-London. I’m glad to be back at it.