Life Lessons
The Things My Dad Gave Me
Hard work, cold Bud, and denim tuxedos
My dad bought his Bunton Lawn Lark lawn mower in 1968. It was a beast of a machine. It was self-propelled and had 36 inches of double spinning blades that made short work of whatever was in its path.
He bought it when he and Mom moved into their “forever home” on Spring Drive. The house, where I was born and lived until I was 18 years old, had more than enough grass to warrant it. As a kid, cutting that grass seemed like an all-day ordeal. It wasn’t quite that bad, but the Lawn Lark definitely made it easier.
Our front yard was the best sledding hill in Louisville. It brought kids from miles around every time there was so much as a dusting. We were lucky to have any grass left whatsoever after back-to-back major winter storms dumped a couple feet of snow in 1977 and ’78.
It was during one of those years that I watched Kent Wernert hit warp speed over the drop off at the bottom of the hill and careen into the side of a city TARC bus. I thought for sure he was dead, but he’s very much alive to this day. Like most kids, he must have been made of rubber.
It was watching my dad cut that grass that convinced me he was the strongest man in the world. On at least a few occasions he wore a ridiculously bad outfit to cut the grass, including bell bottom jeans and an old denim shirt with the sleeves cut off. That shirt revealed what I thought were the biggest biceps I would ever see on a human. I was sure he could lift the Lawn Lark with one arm.
When he worked in the yard he never seemed to tire. It was as if he could have done it all day long, getting more and more joy out of the process the longer he spent on it. I’m sure that’s not how he felt, but that’s how I remember it.
When Dad groomed that yard he was not only maintaining its pristine sledding features, but was also preserving his driving range. He used to hit golf balls from the top of the hill down toward Spring Drive. Instead of shagging them, he’d often walk to the bottom and just hit them back up toward the house. I remember cowering in fear as ball after ball whacked the stucco on the outside of the house. Miraculously I don’t think he ever broke a window.
When I turned 12 my dad taught me how to cut grass. I’m sure he knew that for the most part this was his retirement from the grass business. Over the next six years I spent more hours than I could count walking back and forth across that front hill. I was never as good at it as he was.
One of the things my dad gave me was an appreciation for a crisp, teeth-cracking-cold Budweiser after a long yard session. There is still nothing better to this day than just absolutely crushing one after a couple hours in the back yard.
I’m guessing that, like me, he came to despise cutting grass after doing it for so many years. Some guys like the repetition; they’re able to treat yard work as a stress reliever. I am not one of those guys.
Maybe that’s why, when Dad gave me the Lawn Lark when my wife and I moved into our own forever home I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. I cut the grass with it a couple times, but instead of the smooth-running, grass-eating machine I remembered as a kid it was more of an unwieldy, difficult-to-maneuver behemoth with a mind of its own.
He had put a new engine on it and stenciled my son’s name across the front in neon yellow spray paint, in hopes that eventually he would use it to start a landscaping empire. He didn’t, nor did I, so it sat largely unused in my garage for years.
Fortunately, one of the things my dad gave me was a sentimental attachment to some of the most crisp memories of my youth. So it was natural that for years I couldn’t envision parting ways with the Lawn Lark. It was as if when I let it go I would lose the memory of the strongest man in the world cutting grass, shanking golf balls, or drinking cold beer.
After much-needed cajoling by my wife I finally agreed to part with the Lawn Lark on the same day that Ed Asner died. I’m not usually a blubbery mess when celebrities pass away, but Ed Asner resembled my dad so much that in my mind they had essentially become the same person. So it was already a tough day.
As I cleaned out the garage and waited for the Lawn Lark to get picked up by its new owner, big fat tears kept spilling over my eyelids, intermingling with a face full of sweat caused by the unbearable humidity that never seems to retreat this time of year. I was a salty mess.
The new owner was a guy named Brad. He works at a lawn mower repair shop, and planned to restore the Lawn Lark to its former glory. As I talked to him I envisioned it eventually landing in somebody’s hands who loves cutting grass more than I do, who might actually turn it into the foundation of a landscaping enterprise that enables them to do something really important with the money.
Despite secretly wishing I could have just kept it forever, as I watched the Lawn Lark pull away in the back of a red pickup truck I realized that having it gone would not in any way make the memories of my dad in a sleeveless denim shirt and bell bottom jeans fade.
In fact, the process of letting it go made those memories clearer and more resonant than they had ever been. What a gift my dad gave me.
