I mowed the lawn twice.

If there is one thing about my father that I remember from my growing up years it is that he was always working. He always had a job, but it was more the work he did when he came home from his job. He would always go to his room, change into his grubbies and start the yard work. He was always raking, mowing, picking, shoveling, planting, watering, skimming, cleaning, digging, trimming, cutting, plucking, you get the idea. Sometimes I would go and help, but it was usually because my mom would tell me to go help. I was more of what you call a couch potato. I loved my TV and my snacks (still do).

One day I decided I would surprise my dad by mowing the lawn for him. I got the mower out, I surveyed the yard, and visioned my plan of attack, and I went at it. As I said in an earlier post I am a big baseball fan, keep that in mind as I continue. As I was mowing the lawn, which was substantial, I decided it would be a good idea to try to mow a word into it, just like they do in baseball fields (words like team names, and cities and stuff). When I hatched this plan I didn't take into account how much my old man loved his yard and how particular he was about it. After I decided that it would be a good idea to mow a word into the grass I stopped the mower and thought about what word would be worthy of being written into our back yard. Now, I know that most of you that know me are probably thinking of all the 4 letter words that might have been running through my mind, but you'd be wrong. I thought and thought and thought and then it came to me. I had the most perfect word that has ever been uttered by the lips of mankind. A word that says everything and nothing all at the same time. A word that has been used for years and a word that will never leave our fine vocabulary. I was so proud of myself that I started the mower back up and went to work.

When I was finished I cleaned up the mower, put it away, and went back inside. I couldn't wait for my dad to come home and see what I had done, he would think it was so funny and would be so happy that I had helped. As I sat there the rest of the afternoon I was envisioning my dad walking into the back yard, seeing my handy work, and what his reaction would be. I thought he would run back inside scoop me up we'd have a good laugh and then we'd go to Dairy Queen to get some butter scotch Dilly Bars (one of my childhood favs). When he came home he did exactly what I thought, well he started to anyway. He went to his room and changed, he walked outside, he stood there for a minute, and then he ran inside. "Here he comes" I thought, ready to embrace me. When he came inside he didn't rush to me, instead he just stood inside the door glaring at me and asked, "Who wrote the word "YO" into the grass"? I thought for a brief moment if I should try to blame it on someone else, but as I was the only one home that afternoon my options were limited. I said, "I did, (gulp)". He came up to me and as best he could without thrashing me into oblivion explained to me how much time and care he put into his grass to make it look just right. I suppose he was a little particular. He told me to go get the mower and go over the entire lawn again and how to do it in rows so that each row is strait and neat.

To this day I still think it was funny, but now I know that if I want to write "YO" or any other word into grass it better not be in my dad's backyard.