Green Sneakers

My general lawn care goal has always been: don’t have the worst lawn on the block. I think I’m currently coming up short against that goal.

Growing up we boys had lawn duty, from whatever age it was that we could pull-start the mower -- maybe 11 or 12? The mower was always a Toro, with a side-bag attachment to catch the clippings. We got a lot of pull-starting experience, as you’d have to stop and empty the bag pretty frequently.

At some point that attachment broke and we had to rake everything up, which was the ultimate tedious work. I figured out that I could minimize the raking by cutting in a spiral pattern towards the center of a section of lawn; the re-cutting and blowing would reduce the clippings to a much smaller area, although at some point you couldn’t plow the mower through, and it would stall, and you’d rake up what you had to. I’m guessing this wasn’t the best for either the lawn or the mower, but I don’t think my Dad cared, since his general lawn care goal was about the same as mine now.

The sides of our sneakers were stained grass-green all summer long, like those of every other kid in the neighborhood.

After about a 12-year break for college/Peace Corps/apartment living I had to buy a mower for our first house, on Grant Street. (I should mention that lawn duty for kids in Cameroon meant bending over at the waist 90 degrees and cutting by hand with a machete, making the ol’ Toro seem pretty convenient.) I chose a manual reel-type mower, as a) we had a small lawn, b) it was cheap and didn’t need gas, and c) it was eco-friendly.

The eco-friendliness would get me the occasional cheers from people driving by -- they’d wave and say “Way to go!” as I was cutting, missing the irony from their CO2-spewing internal combustion vehicles. Ahh, Evanston.

The reel mower worked pretty well, and I used it for quite a few years. It took some effort to push, but I didn’t mind the extra exercise, and loved the rythymic chk-chk-chk sound of the blades. It also took a little longer to do the lawn than a gas mower would, turning a 30-minute job into a 45-minute one -- not bad. The only major downside was when I let the grass get a little too long: then it was really hard to push, and there would be tufts of taller poorly-cut grass everywhere, making the lawn look like a kid’s head after a bad haircut.

When my Dad moved into a house without a lawn I inherited his gas mower -- a Toro, naturally, and one that mulched the clippings right into the lawn, eliminating the need to rake. After using it a few times I was reminded why these were so popular, and I relegated the reel mower to the back of the garage, with only a twinge of guilt. And so it has been, ever since.

The only other lawn care effort I make is to edge the sidewalk, which looks very tidy, and is easy to do. De-thatching, aerating, seeding, fertilizing, weed-killing? No thanks, or at least only rarely. And watering? “That’s God’s job,” as I like to say.

Yet I might have to break down and do some of this, or pay someone to do it, as my lawn is looking pretty ratty -- even with the neatly-edged sidewalks. I know someone has to have the worst lawn on the block, but I just don’t want it to be me.

Pat