Life and Death and Lawn Care

I have a confession to make. I don’t own an edger.

In most ways, I present as a typical, middle-aged, suburban American dad. Male pattern baldness, graying scruff, and no-line bifocals. Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts in every shade of khaki. A workbench and toolboxes in my garage, plus a stockpile of cables that would enable me to connect any two pieces of post-Cold War electronic equipment. I stalk the house asking who left lights on. A gas grill? I’ve got one. Corny puns? Oh, shuck yeah.

I’m a walking cliché, and okay with it. My choices suit me.

I work hard(ish) to maintain my one-third-acre estate. But a trained eye—another suburban dad, perhaps—will recognize that the sidewalk-facing edge of my lawn is misshapen, and I know what they’re thinking: What is this groundskeeping abomination you have wrought?

Their words echo from centuries and continents away. Manicured lawns are said to have originated in France. That seems obvious in hindsight. Seriously, where else? I can picture the kings Louis, lounging at Versailles and overlooking their immaculate gardens, dictating caustic letters to the kings George in England. Each Louis ridiculing his corresponding George of having his English fields being grazed by livestock, rather than sculptured by an army of servants wielding scythes and shears like a dignified monarch. Probably accusing him of having carriages up on blocks in front of his inferior castle. The incessant mockery led an Englishman, Edwin Beard Budding, to patent the first mechanical lawnmower. The royal snobbery made its way down to the rank and file and eventually (gasp) to us Americans.

And still, I have no edger. Like a neanderthal, I flip my weed eater on its side, where the whirling plastic tornado inevitably claws a gash into the bulwark of my lawn. I might as well beat the grass with rocks.

I grit my teeth and mutter uncharitable things about Briggs and Stratton, whom I have never met. They don’t deserve my rage. They made my weed eater. My failure is not their fault. They know their craft and offer the correct tool for the job. I am not exaggerating when I say those two revolutionized the lawn care game for us commoners.

At the dawn of the 20th century in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Bill Harley and the Davidson boys were building motorcycles with their inimitable V-Twin engine. Across town, Stephen Briggs and Harold Stratton were forging a very different path to archetypal masculinity. Among other things, Steve and Harry built gas-powered, exhaust-spewing, internal combustion washing machines. Yes, washing machines. I imagine some parallel universe in which Hell’s Angels patronize seedy laundromats.

Harley-Davidson and Briggs & Stratton engines gained popularity for decades, boosted by their contributions to American war efforts. After WWII—in that golden era of suburbanization and its requisite care of home and garden—Briggs & Stratton introduced their world-changing creation: a lightweight aluminum engine. Paired with an enclosed mowing deck, lawn care had evolved.

My dad was ten years old when that little Briggs & Stratton engine debuted and the chore fell to him. Dad, in turn, taught me how to mow at a similar age, although “taught” may be a bit generous.

As I remember it, I was playing in the yard and Mom shouted at Dad to stop mowing and come inside for a phone call. In rural Indiana in 1980, lawnmowers were not equipped with fancy safety features like automatic shutoffs. There was a lever with a picture of a turtle at the bottom and a rabbit at the top, and the engine kept running unless you either killed it intentionally or ran over a log. Dad had turned the throttle down but didn’t shut it off, so I decided to give it a try. I moved the lever back to rabbit and pushed the mower to the edge of the garden. A bit of trial-and-error got it turned back the other way and I pushed again. Dad returned and watched for a minute.

“Keep the front wheel lined up with the edge of the tall grass,” he said. End of lesson.

Every warm weekend since, I’ve considered the state of my yard. Not only whether to mow, but also in which direction. In Dad’s shed hangs a half-sheet of paper with repeating hieroglyphics. \ / — | \ / — | \ /… Every time he mows he adds another mark, and the current sheet chronicles his mowing patterns over three years. Diagonal left-to-right one week, diagonal right-to-left the next, then side-to-side, then front-to-back, then start over. He says this is “so the grass will grow better.” I’m 98% certain it’s pure superstition. However, I’ve never researched the Mowing-Pattern Hypothesis, and I’m not taking any chances. The art and obsession of it all are deep-seated.

I suppose the obvious question is why I don’t just buy myself an edger if it’s such a big deal, but there are conflicting philosophies at play. I see an edger as an extravagance. It’s a tool with one very limited purpose, and I can’t bring myself to pony up the money for it. If I can get by with a $2 pair of nail clippers in lieu of a manicure, why treat my lawn any different? It seems like something a Frenchman would do. I can use my weed eater—a valuable, multi-tasking investment—but risk the derision of neighbors and Europeans, or I can spend a three-figure sum on a tool that will draw a straight line to demarcate my land. You see my dilemma.
Perhaps the one glimmer of hope is that I did not pass this obsession down to my children. It could end with me. They’ll have to develop their own personal hang-ups while I maintain my yard in stubborn pride and solitude. Week after week, summer after summer. I tell myself it’s good enough. Alas, no mowing pattern can fix it. Mine remains a kingdom without edge.

 

Bill McQueen lives just across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio, and has an MFA from the Bluegrass Writers Studio of Eastern Kentucky University. He spends his free time reading, writing, enjoying a variety of outdoor activities, and—to the mild amusement of his wife and children—steadfastly cheering for his beloved Reds and Bengals. He probably should have said beloved before wife and children.