Where Are All the Push Mowers?

I haven't thought about the old push lawn mowers in a very long time. I am talking about the ones that do not have a gas or an electric engine. I am talking about the really old ones that were around long before gas engines became mounted on top of a whirling blade and sold to home owners. The really old one had a long handle, with two rubber covered grippers on each side, two wheels, and four curved blades that intertwined with each other to form a cage sort of thing that rotated when you pushed the mower. Some really fancy ones came with a canvas grass catcher on the back so that the clippings would fall into this square sort of thing that fit behind the rotating blades.

The reason this thought came to mind was when I was sitting in church early Sunday morning, trying to be quiet and think about spiritual things and I heard the unmistakable sound of a gas lawn mower outside the church. Someone was actually mowing the lawn around the church building - yes, on a Sunday morning right in the middle of services. This was wrong on so many levels, but I realized that I had been hearing this same sound coming from outside my own home on an ever increasing basis.

When I was growing up, and even when my children were growing up, Saturday morning was THE day for doing yard work, which included mowing the grass. Every man in the neighborhood was proudly out walking behind their Toro, Lawnboy, Sears, John Deere, or Honda lawn mower. Usually this chore was done early on Saturday mornings (well, not before 8:00am - that would be just too rude) before the Texas heat became completely unbearable. And the reason it was done on Saturday is because all the husbands/dads worked during the week and that was their day "off". Sundays were reserved for church and family time. This was also before stores started staying open 24/7 and shopping became the national past time.

So, back to the sound of lawn mowers. It suddenly occurred to me that now I was hearing the sound of not only lawn mowers, but edgers, weed eaters, leaf blowers, and every other kind of lawn tool every day all day long. No more Saturdays. It was every day, and now even including Sunday morning outside my church. And the reason, I decided, is that no one actually does their own lawn work any more. They hire someone else to do it. So, every day, at all hours of the day, there is this background noise of the roar of the lawn mower, the shrill, ear piercing noise of the weed eaters and edgers, and the jet engine noise of the leaf blowers. There is no more peace and quiet in any neighborhood. We are subjected to this noise all the time - you cannot escape it.

What used to be a source of accomplishment has now been turned into a dreaded chore that you pay someone else to do. We always took a certain amount of pride in the fact that our grass was very thick and green, trimmed and looking all neat. People would sometimes even stop by and comment on it. Now, it's just something that borders most houses and is only noticed if it's 2 feet tall and your neighbors are calling the code enforcement police or turn you in to the homeowner's association.

Life has become something that we are rushing through instead of something to savor and enjoy. There's something to be said for "Stop and smell the roses", only in my case it's "stop and admire the St. Augustine grass."

So, we could stop noise pollution, air pollution, and the ever popular dependence on foreign oil if only everyone went back to a good old fashioned push lawn mower and actually spoke to their neighbors on Saturday morning while they are all out doing their own yard work.