Mowing the Lawn
My parents did not have a great deal of money when I was growing up, but they did have enough for a Japanese man to some and tend our yard. I have a vivid memory of watching this man talk to all our flowers in Japanese and being so impressed as how the blooms thrived. After Pearl Harbor was bombed and our country was at war, ours government came in and literally swept all the Japanese people out of the Los Angles area into camp; our Japanese gardener simply disappeared.
As a result, because I was the first born, my father assigned the job of mowing the lawn to me. At that time, no one had even heard of any kind of mechanical device that would make a lawn mower move easily over the grass. My dad had purchased a push mower that took all my strength to push. Also in Southern California, the seasons do not change, freezing temperatures come rarely. So I had to mow twelve months out of the year, and I hated every minute of it. When one compares the size of my California lawn to the size of lawns in our community, I would describe mine as a “postage stamp.” It really was small, but I still dreaded my dad saying, “Kay, it’s time for you to mow the lawn.”
When we married, I made a deal with my husband. “Look,” I said. “I will be responsible for all the “in-‘the-house” chores, if you will consent to keep our yard in good shape and mow the lawn.” He agreed to this bargain and it worked well while we lived in Washington Street. In 1969, we moved to a home on Linden Lane. Our neighbor, who lived directly east of us, would mow his back lawn weekly whether it needed it or not (according to Pete’s judgment). This frustrated Pete because it meant he had to mow more often than he wanted so our neighbor’s yard would not make our yard look like a hayfield. I remember a couple of times when ministerial duties kept Pete really busy and he had asked me to mow. But I assured him he needed the exercise and stuck to our bargain: no mowing for me.
The time came, however, when diabetes so weakened Pete’s body that he no longer had the physical energy to push a mower even though it had a motor that powered it. So, after many years, I was mowing again. I thought about hiring someone to mow, and then I told myself that I needed the exercise, but really I did not like it any better than I did when I was a child.
It was Halloween, 2000, when I used a mower for the last time. Pete had passed away; I had been able to sell our home; I had plans to build a home where I would not have a lawn, so I placed an ad in the local newspaper to sell my mower, including the gas can. I can still remember how I rejoiced when a man came, gave me some money, and drove off with that mower and the gas can.
It’s interesting, isn’t it – how some aversion begun in childhood can last a life time. I plan to never mow another lawn!