The scars of country life
…Hope everybody had a happy – and safe – Fourth of July! I’m sure there were plenty of cookouts and family get-togethers, not to mention the celebration of patriotic music and fireworks. (It was reassuring not to hear any reports of any explosive-related injuries that unfortunately happen all too often around this time of year.) I personally had a rather quiet Independence Day, spending time with friends and enjoying a nice night at the Greene Cove, which culminated with a decent fireworks display. But I did have a different kind of “explosive” day on Sunday, and believe me, it had nothing to do with fireworks. Those who bumped into me this week may have noticed that I had a nasty gash on my forehead and may have wondered what the heck happened to me. And I have to confess, I brought this injury all on my own. My wife didn’t deck me (although I probably have given her several reasons to do so…Believe me, it ain’t easy living with me); rather, this painful wound was a result of an accident that occurred while I was mowing our grass.
Let me preface this by admitting that lawn mowers and I have never been on friendly terms. I can remember growing up and my parents would make me mow our lawn and I always protested because I hated the task.
Not because I’m lazy (at least, not all the time) but because I hated spending so many precious summer hours performing such a boring chore when I could have been riding bikes or playing baseball with my friends. And I always thought it was such a pointless and futile exercise; I would spend hours cutting the green stuff and then I’d have to do it all over again a week later.
And when I was finished, soaked in sweat and covered in grass, I would usually hear comments like, “You missed a strip” or “Okay, now go and weed-whack.”
To put it mildly, I never found much joy in this endeavor, and I’ll never forget how happy I was when one summer my parents told me they were paying a neighbor kid to mow our lawn. (They said they were doing it to help out a neighbor; I think it was their kind way of telling me my performance was insufficient and I was fired.)
Cut to many, many years later when my wife and I finally bought our dream house in the country, and we were thrilled when we discovered that we had a couple acres of beautiful land that went with the house.
I couldn’t believe it – a big yard to play ball with the future kids, to hold cookouts, to set up a garden. We had never had a big yard, so this was perfect!
That excitement was short-lived, however, at the beginning of our first summer there, when all of my bad lawn-mowing memories from my adolescence came roaring back. Even though we had a riding mower, I knew that many of my summer weekends were going to be spent cutting grass. For the rest of my life. I thought of it as a lifetime summer prison sentence, with no chance of parole.
Fortunately, my wife actually loves to work outside in the yard and she has graciously spared me many weekends of torture by voluntarily hopping on the mower and giving it a grooming. (It’s times like these that I’m so glad I married a country girl.) But this past Sunday, she was called in to work and asked me if I could get out there and cut the grass for a change.
I obliged, but not before mumbling under my breath that I hated the task. After allowing me to complain for a few minutes, my wife gave me “that look” (All you married men out there, you know what I’m talking about.) And before long I was hopping on the mower, vowing to get it done as quickly as possible.
Everything was going fine until the impact that caused me to see stars and fireworks of my own. I was trying to maneuver the mower around a tree in our front yard that has several low, thick branches; I rode up to the tree as close as I could get, and then reversed the mower to go around it.
Only I didn’t put it in reverse, I slipped it in gear, causing the mower to lunge forward, bashing my head into a really big low branch and knocking me off the mower and onto my dazed butt. Fortunately the mower stopped but a quick touch of my forehead revealed that I was bleeding. As I climbed to my feet, I realized that I was groggy and my head was spinning. I darned near knocked myself out.
I sat back down and tried to clear the cobwebs, when suddenly I felt a serious and unusual pain in my left foot. I was wearing flip-flops, and when I took my left one off I realized that I was being stung by not one, but two sweat bees, on the same toe. I jumped up and yelped in pain, only to realize that I was still woozy from the impact of the tree branch and I immediately fell down on my butt.
(At this point, I remember looking around to see if anyone happened to be driving by and witnessed this comedy show. If somebody could have captured this incident on videotape, it would have been a shoo-in to win money on “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”)
After spending several minutes whining and fuming about my misfortunes, I climbed back on the mower and finished the job, my head pounding and blood trickling down my forehead. I could have called it quits, but I wasn’t going to let the lawn defeat me. But I vowed that I would do the right thing in the near future, and do what my folks did all those years ago – hire a neighbor kid to mow the stupid grass from here on out.
Another year of country living, another painful scar and an even more painful memory. Sigh…
…Well, I just returned from “Greene County Day” at Kennywood Park, and I have to tell you, it was fun to see many familiar faces from our area as well as watch many young ladies representing the county as “Local Royalty” get a little attention in the spotlight, including several of this year’s Miss Rain Day contestants and various local queens. So, hat’s off to WANB Radio, First Federal Savings and Loan of Greene County and Waynesburg Area Chamber of Commerce for putting together this fun day.
(Check out some of the photos that were snapped at Greene County Day on our front page and on Page C1.)
Of course, it wasn’t all business at the park, as I had the opportunity to put away the pen, paper and camera for a couple of hours and partake in some of the fun rides once again. My favorite highlight of the day, hands down, was riding the Phantom’s Revenge – the park’s baddest coaster – with none other than the Rev. Donald Wilson, who was kind enough to bless the ride and me before we were hurled up and down the track at blazing speeds.
Truthfully, I never had a more enjoyable ride…