The Sleeping Bear

I’ve turned into a grassman. No, I’m not one of those Bob Marley wannabes with bugs in my hair who hates deodorant but loves kicking the hacky sack. I’m the kind of grassman who likes to mow the lawn, kill weeds, fertilize and water.

It’s not surprising. I come from a long line of grassmen, sired by some of the greatest grassmen this side of Augusta. Both of my grandparents were grassmen. Grandpa Bob was notorious for his immaculate lawns. They were so green and weed-free that you’d think you’d died and gone to heaven. But not the Muslim heaven, because there weren’t any virgins around. Though he had the money for it, Grandpa Bob didn’t need migrant Mexican labor for his lawn – he did it all himself with a mix of cancer-causing pesticides regular mowings and lots of water.

Grandpa Arnold was also an avid grassman. His ideal day consisted of catching a Twins game on TV and then going outside to his riding lawnmower to whip his lawn into shape. By the time he got to his late 80s, he could barely walk, but he always managed to walk out to the garage, get that lawnmower and shave that fast-growing grass.

And then there’s my dad. He may tell you that he hates mowing the lawn, but just one look at the two-acre parcel he slices and dices and you know he’s lying. No one would create a yard of that size without being an honest-to-goodness grass-aholic.

An anecdotal aside: We were recently enjoying the dad’s immaculately mowed parcel when the following conversation occurred:

Relative: It must take you forever to mow the lawn.

Pops: About 4 hours.

Relative: At least you’ve got kids to do it.

Pops: Too bad they never did.

I of course protested. I remember killing many a young tree, scraping the bark off of apple trees and running over garden hoses while tooling around on the Snapper. But the truth was, I didn’t mow the lawn much. Why? Because dad’s a grassman through and through and didn’t trust us to mow as precisely as him. Bottom line: We weren’t grassmen.

But now, I’m sad to admit, I am. I bought a house 5 years ago (and didn’t own a lawnmower for my first three months in the new abode). I didn’t care about my lawn, mainly because with three shitty, pissy dogs, it’s very hard to keep the lawn in order.

And what damage those shit-pissers did. Yellow spots, dead spots, spots where no living thing, not even a cockroach, could survive. And the retreating grass was quickly taken over by dandelions and Creeping Charlie. And not the Vietnam-era Creeping Charlies. This one is harder to kill.

My conversion to grass-aholic started almost two years ago. Over Labor Day weekend the little lady and I (mostly the little lady since I just want to veg on the couch) decided to dig up the most disgusting part of our yard and re-sod it. Three days of back-breaking labor and many swear-words later, and we had ourselves a green lawn.

But it didn’t last. We made the mistake of letting the dogs on it this past winter. When the snow and ice (which was mostly dog piss and shit) melted, we were staring at half of our new sod dead and gone.

And that’s when I knew I was a grass junkie. Because I dug up half the new sod, laid down some even newer sod and sprinkled in some grass seed for good measure. Then we laid down a killing field that consisted of both fertilizer and weed killer. And we watered like hell. And to top it off, we put up a green chicken fence that isolated said pissers/shitters to the deadest part of the lawn. No more free range pissing/shitting at SCL’s house.

Obviously, that didn’t kill the Creeping Charlie (because he’s damn near impossible to kill), but I solidified my grass habit by raking up what I could (since Chuck’s essentially a ground vine, it worked better than expected) and then got down on my heretofore pristine hands and knees to pick out the creepers. Yeah, you heard me, nearly 15,000 square feet of lawn full of creeping grass death and I’m systematically de-creeping it inch by inch.

That’s commitment. And that’s why I have now been indoctrinated into the Grassman faith.