Hey, how do you start this thing?
It was late July in central PA when my wife asked me to mow the lawn. I swallowed really hard and looked at her puzzled.
“I can try,” I said, as I went to get the mower.
“It’s easy” she said as she walked away.
There it sat, a Craftsman riding mower, Sears’s pride. I got on it and studied the levers and pedals for a long time trying to make sense of them. They didn’t make sense.
Lawn mowers were not very common in Guatemala when I was growing up, at least not in my neighborhood. In fact, grass was not very common either.
People had little areas of grass sometimes and they would trim it with some of those big scissors, or a push mower with rotating blades but with no engine. There was grass in the city around the fancy commercial buildings and landscapers would keep it manicured. Sometimes you would see a gas lawn mower being operated by an elite landscaper, usually the boss.
In Monte Verde (the place where I grew up) I don’t recall seeing anybody using one. At my house, grass would grow wild and we would cut it down with a machete. It was hard on the hands, so it was often neglected.
My brother Armando and I would go around the ravine and find patches of grass. Using a large hoe, we would cut squares of sod and plant it for people who bought it from us. We actually sold quite a bit of it. People would buy it to enhance the front of their properties and we made a few Quetzales (The Guatemalan currency).
When I first came to the USA, I lived in southern California in a city named Torrance. The landscaping there was nice and every house had a lawn with the grass kept nice and trimmed. People used lawn mowers all the time, literally every household had a lawn mower! What?
Landscaping companies had several of them! They would pull up with loaded trailers and like ants Latino workers would get to work on lawns buzzing around until they were perfect. They had push mowers and riding mowers. What the heck was all that other stuff in the trailer? I did not know at the time.
I worked doing janitorial services and never had the need to use a lawn mower as I lived in a nice apartment building where there were landscapers that took care of the gardens and grass.
One day I left California to go to Pennsylvania to find a nice place to raise my family. My wife and I moved to Pennsylvania. When our first son was only four months old we came to a place called Dillsburg and stayed with my in-laws for a few months. They lived in a very large house that sat on two acres of land and was surrounded by apple and peach orchards.
Moving to the country always sounded nice and wholesome like the ideal thing to do. I loved being so close to the creek and breathing nice clean air but for somebody like me who had grown up in the city it was a tremendous adjustment. Living in the country was not as easy and romantic as it sounded. There were a lot of things I did not know about living that lifestyle.
So there I sat continuing to study the Craftsman riding mower. I thought that after working in Beverly Hills, parking all kinds of fancy foreign cars, I should be able to figure out a lawn mower. But, no luck.
After a while, my wife called from the upstairs window, “Hey honey, where are you? I thought you were going to mow the lawn.”
“Hey! How do you start this thing?” I asked again, feeling totally embarrassed. She came down holding our little baby boy and explained to me what the pedals did and also the levers. Then as she walked away she said “Just give it try, you’ll figure it out.” I stood there feeling like the Mona Lisa with a goofy grin on my face.
After a few minutes, I got on the mower and started it up. I tried inching it forward little by little and found out the brake did not work like the brakes in a car and the accelerator was really jumpy. I tried it in reverse and bumped into the table saw in the shop. Finally, I got it out of the shop and on to the driveway. It was a good feeling to have some control on the thing and plenty of room to stop in case of mistakes.
I mowed the lawn for the first time. It was a big accomplishment for me. My little baby Tito, stood looking out the window, watching me go by and waving at me every time I passed by. I would quickly wave back and hang on to the wheel with a tense grip.
While I was mowing the lawn some people had come to deliver a new porch swing for Grandma Nevada (my mother in law). It was a beautiful oak swing. It sat on a nice pedestal and hung from new shiny chains. They put it in the garage against the back wall to wait until a coat of preservative was put on it.
Meanwhile, lunch was ready and I was called to come in. Feeling very confident after mowing the whole lawn, I drove the lawnmower into the garage….Oh shoot!! Somehow I lost control of the thing and for a split second I pushed the gas instead of the brake. When I pushed the brake it didn’t work like brakes work in a car.
It was amazing how quickly I got to the back wall of the garage and rammed straight into the beautiful swing that had just been delivered. I still could not stop the mower, the wild thing just kept ramming the swing into the wall over and over. My heart was racing! In desperation I reached for the key and shut it off! I jumped off the mower and yanked it by the rear fender to drag it away from the swing.
The swing was totally deformed. I tried to straighten it up but there was no use. There were screws sticking out and the whole thing was all wobbly. I thought everybody in the kitchen had heard the commotion and would be coming out to see the disaster but no one did.
Quickly, I ran down to the shop and got steel wool and a screw driver, stuffed the holes with the steel wool and drove the screws back into the swing. Amazingly I had the swing back in shape in no time at all. It is amazing what you can do when you are scared and the adrenaline kicks in. The swing felt strong and miraculously only had a few bump marks and scratches. I went inside and had lunch wondering if I should say anything about it or not. I decided to wait and see if it would hold up and then deal with it. The swing lasted for many many years and stayed nice and strong. But every time I sat on it, I would remember that hot summer day and the stupid lawn mower. Or maybe the stupid guy and the lawn mower.
Living in Pennsylvania was hard at first, but eventually I grew into the country lifestyle. I learned more about maintenance equipment and definitely more about lawn mowers.
About twenty three years later and after a few more mishaps with lawn mowers we purchased for my in-laws house. We now had six children; 4 boys and two girls. I had just gone into a full time remodeling business and needless to say I owned most of the necessary tools for the trade and used them quite well.
The yard in our new house had been neglected for a few years, and there were a lot of weeds, brush and overgrowth everywhere. The groundhogs had moved in really close to the house and had made their tunnels everywhere, the black snakes were all around the house and even inside the house. We had to do something!
With all that work to do and only the same old Sears tractor mower to maintain the place, the boys decided we “needed” a better mower. Not just any mower, a John Deere zero degree turn mower! Aye, aye, aye!
We talked about it for a couple of years. Then while part of the family and I were on vacation, the boys (Owen and Ollie) finally got their way and went to buy the sophisticated machine. The new mower ran like a charm! It was fast and it could turn on a dime. It definitely was a beauty!
Wait a minute! It didn’t have a steering wheel. Only levers, and no brake pedal. That was new! I would have to learn to drive again. The boys seemed to take to it in an easy natural way. I was reluctant and figured I would slowly get familiar with it. It brought back my first experience with a riding mower all those years ago and it made me smile.
A few weeks after we bought the zero turn, I was still not too comfortable with the idea of driving it. After some thought, I decided to give it a try on the lower back yard which was wide open and perfect for learning. I didn’t want to venture riding downhill just yet from where the mower was parked behind the “Sugar Shack” (our guest house) on a little slope. My youngest son Chico, who was only seven years old, was helping me push it down the hill trying not to let it go too fast. It was very heavy and hard to steer. I figured it would probably be easer to maneuver it if I got on it and let it coast as I steered it.
The mower started rolling down hill quickly gaining speed as Chico pushed it. Suddenly, I realized I had no control! The direction levers did not respond without the engine running!!! I tried to slow the mower down by dragging my foot on the ground but I could hardly reach because the levers were in my way. When I finally managed to put my foot on the grass, the rear wheel almost ran it over.
By now the machine was going really fast and heading for the wire fence at the end of the yard. Chico went into a panic and screamed as he ran after me “Papiiiiiiii!!!” He hung onto the rear fender trying to stop the mower but his feet just slid over the grass. He let go and I hung on to the levers and braced myself. The mower was moving fast and missed a sycamore tree by a foot and then hit the fence head-on!!
I was not hurt, the mower was fine too. Once again, I had learned something new about lawn mowers. It was embarrassing. Chico and I laughed afterwards and had fun telling the story.
Twenty years have passed since this beautiful memory was made. My beautiful boys and girls are grown up and moved on in their journey through life. Some of them have children of their own and some live across the country and one across the world. Our beautiful lawn mower was retired this past summer after so many years of good service. It was replaced by another John Deere zeroturn which was a bit larger.
Chico has a beautiful baby boy of his own and now I’m a master driver with the new mower.