It has been a long, hot summer with sweltering temperatures and oppressive humidity, making me especially happy when I look back on the second best investment I ever made – my riding lawn mower.
Before you ponder too much on the best investment I ever made, let me spoiler alert that and tell you it was Lasik surgery on my eyes many years ago, taking me from 20/2400 to right at 20/20 in the matter of a minute on the doctor’s table. Granted, it was only good for about 10 years and I’m now slipping to 20/70 but it was well worth the $2,000 I paid for a decade of very clear vision.
Anyway, back to the riding lawn mower. When I was a kid, mowing the lawn was the one chore that had my name written on it. And, being from a family who didn’t have a lot of money, I was sentenced to push mowing a fairly large lot at least once a week. Making things tougher, my father didn’t exactly invest in the highest rated mowers but instead gave me rust buckets with dull blades to mow the acre which was located on one of the most traveled streets in McMinnville.
I’d put it off as long as I could, dreading the biting bugs and the sweat rolling down my back. Plus, cable television and air conditioning was inside. The problem with the procrastination was the longer I would wait, the taller the grass would get. By the time I would get to the chore, it would be an exercise in frustration. I would push for a few feet only for the mower to die out. Then I’d have to pull that stupid starter cord, over and over again, the restart getting harder each time I had to do it. If the grass was even a little bit wet, I’d spend as much time pulling the start cord as I would mowing.
Therefore, once I got my own place I saved up and got me a riding lawn mower. For many years I’d sport around my yard, enjoying a cold beverage while cutting the lawn.
“This is the way gentlemen cut their lawn,” I told myself, recalling the many years of toiling with a push mower.
But, all good things must come to an end. When we moved to a new house in a fairly heavily populated subdivision, my riding mower died. Given moving costs and other bills, I wasn’t able to immediately afford a new rider. Therefore, with much chagrin, I had no option but to return to my roots and do it the old fashioned way.
Only a couple of weeks into push mowing my yard, I noticed that people in my new neighborhood were slowing down to look at me. At first I’d wave, thinking they were noting a new person on the block. However, then I noticed one mother pointing at me, talking to her kid.
“That’s the way people used to mow their lawns,” I could see her mouth. I’d become a spectacle, a blast from the past.
Needless to say that’s when I started putting my pennies back and by the next mowing season I was able to buy a used rider, one I ride to this day. Mow like a gentleman.
Contact Duane Sherrill at news@smithvillereview.com