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Have I missed my calling?
Image ©Tom Eversgerd |
What is the sound I have learned to associate most with the Midwest after my most recent two-week sojourn this last May? It is not the near ubiquitous chirpings of red wing blackbirds and robins. No, not the buzzing of a million bugs reveling in the humid torpor of a promised thunderstorm. It is the revved up roar of the riding lawn mower.
Visually the lawns here are quite stunning - True works of art. Drive from St. Louis International past the sculpted grounds of corporate buildings, parks and universities, then pass the farmsteads in the rural areas and on into the neighborhoods in the heartland and it is blaringly apparent just how much effort, pride and money flows into this pursuit.
Whispers remain of the geometric passes made by riding mowers. Perfectly hewn lines across thousands of emerald carpets of every size and pitch... North America's own version of the Nazca lines, though a bit more utilitarian and ephemeral but no less impressive to me. Solitary pin oak and rose bushes are spun concentrically around as deftly as a Shinto monk would take a rake to a Zen rock garden.
I imagine the perfected art of the riding mower as a rite of passage. To have acquired the skills needed to create such harmony in a manicured space must require monk-like stamina, a keen eye for spatial symmetry and mastery over a decent sized machine with spinning metal blades.
In water-starved and laid back California the lawns often look like they were beaten with an ugly stick- with massive yellowed patches, often more weeds and dust than true grass... Most people give up and throw down flowerpots or gravel, build a deck... My main high school chore was push power mower forays. A sad little machine by Midwest standards... It sputtered and choked and constantly stalled on the uneven ground, clogging routinely with the carpets of spiky canyon oak leaves. To my father's constant consternation, as he would have to replace them, I would inevitably wump a couple hidden brass sprinkler heads into my shins during the bi monthly mowings because I was too lazy to rake first.
So when Maureen's father Tom asked if I would mow I said sure. I thought it a high honor, kind of like gaining entrance to a secret society like the Masons. I also thought there might be a glimmer of redemption for my lazy hasty mowings of the past. Tom is a big man with thick arms and speaks the language of hard work and has all his life. I would do my best to speak his language.
I was also hoping to repay their kindness for what turned into my lengthy stay after the plane from Argentina put us back in Germantown. I was excited to have projects. First I dug out ornamental rocks around an oak because its roots were growing into them instead of down. I then successfully weed whacked a half acre behind the barn- an area recently flooded and still too wet to mow and handily dispatched the three foot tall weeds.
After an evening session of cutting Tom told me I had best brush off with the broom because I had painted my pants and shirt green with flying bits of plant from the industrial strength weedwacker. He shared a story of how when he got his new job as a gas delivery man in the beginning he would come home smelling of gasoline because he was still learning and was spilling it all over himself. A week in a coworker asked if he liked it. "Yeah, I like it. The first four days I got home my wife met me at the door and said take all your clothes off right now! I told him that's the first time that's ever happened in my whole life. He thought that was great."
I felt like I was slowly earning some points. It's tough to prove you have a solid work ethic when first you are in Argentina for two months and then you are spending a couple weeks recovering in the Midwest as I had been doing... Sure I was slinging a few photos and writing, recovering from travel -but certainly to someone on the outside the life of a freelancer might, well, look a bit lazy...
Then Tom made the announcement. "I got some mowing for you Bennett, if you want to do it." I was honored. I may have beamed. Tom's lawn was no exception in the artistic category. A true thing of beauty. Both Maureen and her mom Jan were a bit surprised at the announcement and said, "Really?" They confessed being afraid of Tom's mower. I saw it as my chance, some latent desire to feel domestically professional at something and maybe impress Tom with how quickly I might pick up the skill and actually do something helpful. The Midwest climate required a couple mowings a week this time of year and he had a few acres worth with some 20 trees, flower beds, clothesline and power boxes to snake around.
Heading to where the mower was stored I was stoked, I seriously felt like I might burst into skipping mode. Maureen stopped me and tried to bring me back down to earth. She said, "The only time I have ever seen my dad mad was when we drove a car on his lawn." I assured her I would be careful. Then she followed it up with a story about her sister crashing into a support column on the porch years ago when she was learning the riding mower.
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Pro Mowers...
©Bennett Barthelemy |
It was true I wasn't the most precise or detail oriented person, and maybe my eyes didn't fuse meaning I could never be a commercial pilot, and I had never been on any sort of heavy machinery save a car - but how difficult could it be?
When the roll top door was yanked up and I first saw the gleaming orange monster I got a tad nervous. I admit my ADHD brain kind of kicked in as Tom verbally described all the controls and executions... "Ok. These two bars here pull in and when they are out it cuts the power, safety feature. Push forward to go, backwards to stop and go back and one bar in at a time to spin around. Chokes here. Open 'er up all the way right here and run it hard. This is for grass height so slide this here. When you are in neutral drop the blades with this here and make sure you switch it back when its in neutral before you shut her down. Raise the deck height here... Got it?"
The model name in cursive carved in the metal above the covered blade was "Bad Boy." Now I was getting slightly more nervous. It was a diesel and obviously had more than a few horses hidden in it. Maureen said when it came to mowers her dad had to have the best. It was a zero turn and much larger than his old riding mower. The sticker price was double what I paid for my car, close to 10 grand.
Tom must have seen my somewhat glazed and confused look and said, "Just watch what I do here." A good teacher, he flipped all the switches and explained again the nuances through the howl of the engine and then roared off to cut the borders of the field adjacent his storage warehouse... The idea was that I would have guide cuts to go by and not drive it into the boggy ditch at the far edge.
The wheel needs to be placed in the same groove the outside wheel just made from the previous pass when you begin your next pass. I was all over the place trying to dial in a straight trajectory and did twice as many passes as I needed to. I felt like a three year old again trying to color inside the lines.
When it came to turning at the end of the cut the zero turn lived up to its name and rotated as if on a fixed pivot and dizzyingly swung its bulky frame around. I thought the G-force from the torquey spin might cause me to pass out. Admittedly, it was fun, but I noticed I put it a balding spin burning out a chunk of grass ... "Slow down on those turns." Tom's sage advice. This had not been easy to do but I reasoned with a bit of practice I would get it. Tom was generous and reassuring. "A couple more times and you can cut the lawn by the house." I wasn't so sure.
As we walked back to the house he told me he had an older zero turn he was selling for $1500. "When I got the new one I saved 45 minutes cutting my front yard." Even though Tom had officially retired the township still called him regularly to cut the miles of grass at the highway margins. He was an agrarian artist and if he believed I could successfully cut his lawn then maybe I really could.
A day later at breakfast Tom handed me keys and asked if I would cut the lawn around the house. There had been no "couple more times". I wanted desperately to find the confidence and say yes but hesitated. Maureen and her mom were shocked. "Really Tom?" said Jan. You are leaving, don't you want to be here?" Maureen said I didn't have to do it I didn't feel comfortable. Hearing this my pride kicked in. "Sure Tom. I'm keen."
That night after the cutting Maureen and I pitched a tent in Shawnee National Forest. Fireflies floated past surreally in the dark, pops from our campfire serenaded us. The scrabble game fought for my attention when usually I am rapt. I was wracked with worry and guilt. We had left after the grass cutting fiasco and I had not seen Tom yet...
I tried to play the word sawn; the past tense of saw, but without a dictionary Maureen was not convinced it was a word. I couldn't blame her, as I was infamous for passing off sketchy strings of letters. "Like the past tense of mow is mown," I said. Then all the guilt and horror flooded back anew from my afternoon grass attack...
I had put the mower away not feeling too bad but slightly concerned I had put a few too many burnout marks negotiating my turns. I had remembered to slow to a crawl for them. I just wasn't consistent with the technique so I decided I would save the front yard for Tom and his expertise. The grass had a bit of saturation to it from the recent thunderstorms and I hated the thought of doing any real damage where it would be visible to the whole town.
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A well groomed lawn is paramount to maximize the fun at a washers tournament (kind of like golf)
©Maureen Eversgerd |
While I was packing for Shawnee NF Maureen yelled for me. "What did you even do Bennett? Did you put the blade down?" There was an obvious triangle of shaggy grass but I was sure I had seen grass bits flying from the machine. I ran back to the shed and fired up the beast again and brought it to the backyard under Maureen's watchful eye. I re-cut the shaggy triangle and on my turn Maureen screamed.
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| Maureen killing it... ©Bennett Barthelemy |
A fresh bare chunk appeared from the zero turn rotation despite the slowing. I shut it down and took a closer look at the several dozen turns and the majority showed they had lost grass to my lack of mowing prowess. I felt sick. Maureen just shook her head in shock. No laughing at me, just a pitiful look with a twinge if what I thought was unspoken horror. It was suddenly serious. "Should I try to re-cut the whole thing?" I asked sheepishly. "No. Just put it back."
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These women play for keeps! Jan celebrates her win.
©Bennett Barthelemy |
On the way home from camping, after sweating gallons in the humid forested sauna, wading through endless poison ivy and fighting slugs for slimy saturated sandstone pinches on climbing routes at Jackson Falls, being feasted on by mosquitoes and ticks (actually all a really cool and worthwhile Midwest experience) at Ferne Clyff it was time to face the music. There was no more hiding. We turned Maureen’s cell on now that we had a signal but there were no messages. I begged Maureen to call her folks so I could know what to expect. How mad would Tom be? Maureen shrugged which really did not help my angst.
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Maureen enjoying Jackson Falls in Shawnee National Forest
©Bennett Barthelemy |
I had Maureen call her folk's house but there was no answer so she left a message. I then texted her mom apologizing for the grass massacre and asking if they had built a bonfire and burnt all my belongings yet. No response. I thought about buying sod chunks and replacing the turkey platter sized divots. Or perhaps grass seed would work?
When we arrived Maureen's mom was working on her flowerbed that circled a backyard tree. The mower was parked a few feet from her. Did you run over her flowers too?" Oh, God I thought. I am so dead. Thankfully Jan had just gotten some new potted flowers and was putting them in the dirt around the tree.
Jan confessed she didn't know how mad Tom was but I could find out. He was inside. Hmm... Maybe humor could defuse it... I cautiously entered the house. I opened with, "Hey Tom, I tried hard to tackle the guy that hijacked your mower and put all the holes in your lawn but he was too fast." "Oh? You mean the same guy that ran into my tree?"
"What? He hit your tree too?" I was stunned. I remembered rubbing against a tree while on my first turn but never thought it damaged it. I quickly walked outside and looked at it I saw the bark had been sheared clean off and I had nearly girdled it -which would have killed it had I been accurate enough to continue the spin.
Tom chuckled loudly and said, “The tree would be fine. The grass would grow back.” I breathed a huge sigh of relief. "That's the nice thing about you working for free, I can't fire you," offered Tom. It was clear, though unspoken; I would not be getting near the mower. I had to agree was probably a sound decision.
Tom then got back on the parked mower to finish up. Maureen grabbed my arm and said, "Watch the master make his turn." A three point and not a zero point pivot turn - a chunk free execution. It made perfect sense now. Maybe I would get a shot at mowing redemption next visit. Hmm... Probably not.
From inside the house a few minutes later I heard the mower shut down and then Jan yell at Tom. I walked outside and Jan told me Tom had negotiated his last three point mower turn directly over the bright orange pansy she had just planted minutes before...
"Dang it," said Tom. I made her promise not to tell!" We all shared a laugh.
Later I got to thinking. Tom was a 4th degree black belt at mowing, the Midwest equivalent of Jet Li. There was a part of me that secretly wondered if he ran down the defenseless pansy purposefully to help me assuage my guilt? Hmm...
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A five foot long snake skin hangs from a sign at Ferne Clyff State Park.
©Bennett Barthelemy |
