My
lawn is a four-minute mowing job. The length of the task barely qualifies for
being worthy of documentation, but the lack of such a photo in my albums would
puzzle my descendants. I come from a
line of Americans intent on posing with their lawn mowers, snow blowers, and shovels. My distant relatives Arvilla and Walter Jones (below), are dressed
in their church clothes for a formal portrait with their reel mower. I think a good title is Patriotism with a Mower.
Early lawn mowers, designed and constructed in the 1830s in England, were made of cast
iron. They were so heavy that they often required one person to push and one to
pull – giving them the moniker of “man and boy machines”.
My dad loved mowing. He enjoyed being outside, getting some
exercise, and basking – in a humble sort of way – in the quiet admiration of
his family, neighbors, and passing cars.
He loved all aspects of yard care. Seeding, sodding, thatching,
fertilizing, watering, and weed killing. But the American family pastime, yard
care, was deceptively complex.
***
“My, my, your children are
growing like weeds,” said uncles, and neighbors, and the men at the hardware
store. Patting us on our summer-bleached
hair, our heads soft and golden as dandelions, the salesmen at the hardware
store touted to my dad the merits of the best and latest in weed killers.
“This here weed killer, just
the strongest. Kills them weeds right
off. Yup, growing like weeds, these kids
of yours.”
We shook our tousled golden
heads in puzzlement. Adults were so odd.
The chemical and pesticide
firms were led mostly by men back then. Their
marketing efforts touted the glories of green grass and robust flowers. They printed on the labels in type, as tiny as the edge of a blade of
grass – if they did so at all – the
unpronounceable names of poisonous ingredients and their hazards. They hoped the buyers would associate size
with significance.
– Excerpt from my memoir in
progress, The Education of an American
Houser
***
The sound of lawn mowers, baseball announcers, and the clink of ice cubes was the fond background noise of my childhood and youth. Only later, when cancers became common and I owned my own lawn, did I decide to cautiously use weed-killing chemicals. My quarter-acre lawn was never the dense and bright green field of a
well kept yard, but I mowed and pulled dandelions by hand. It was my neighborly duty. Some might say patriotic duty.
By the early 1950s, reel mowers were replaced by lightweight, gas-powered lawn mowers that "even women could use”. A gas can became a necessity in every American toolshed or garage. I didn't often see my mom (above) mowing, but she loved wearing the gardening clothes the American fashion began marketing for the modern, suburban woman. Shorts, capris, halter tops, and
tennis shoes appeared in catalogues and local department stores. They were a boon to the clothing industry. Although girls
rarely mowed, they wore similar outfits as their mothers. The style of clothing suggesting that being active was okay for females.
Meanwhile, men and boys began wearing their t-shirts (formerly their underwear) as
outer wear for doing the yardwork. The style gained
favor up and down the social order, making it harder to discern someone’s
economic standing. A very democratic
move.
In the fall some of my family used leaf blowers and in winter snow blowers (like my Uncle Ted above). They all celebrated the machines that made us proper American citizens.
There
is much to admire in yard care work: the ingenuity of the
inventors, the production of the machines, the creativity of the chemists, the
changes in clothing for women and men, and more
recently the leg-up to becoming citizens for hardworking (primarily Hispanic)
lawn maintenance crews.
But there is a downside. America now
has over 40 million acres in lawn. An astonishing figure! Every weekend approximately 56 million Americans mow their yards using 800 million gallons of gas a year. Gasoline spilled, when tanks are filled, pollutes groundwater. The inefficient, small engines emit pollutants into the air and also contribute to noise pollution and hearing loss. (Facts from Clean Air Yard Care, 2018) Moreover, as riding mowers gain
a majority of the mower market, the earlier benefit of aerobic exercise
decreases. The next generations of Americans will
be challenged to redefine the look of yards or how we care for them. Chemical companies are already working on growth-inhibiting products for grass. Solar-powered mowers are becoming available.
This
little guy, in the meantime, is learning to mow my four-minute lawn with a reel
mower. Documentation of mowing machines
continues in my family. We are not done with lawns, yet. We might not have a flag to wave, but we have mowers to push.
