The day is glorious. I was out and about early: met my friend for breakfast, went to the dump, shopped at Agway and went to my local vampire for blood drawing. On the way home I saw a field of dandelions aglow in bright yellow and stopped to look. I smiled all the way home.
Today will be in the low 70’s here, low 80’s in Boston. It is a day to be outside, to sit in the sun with a good book and a cold drink.
When I was a kid, I never minded the heat. On the hottest day, we would run through the sprinkler. The water was always cold. Sometimes we’d jump over it while other times we’d stand in the spray as the sprinkler spun. I remember the sprinkler always made a whirr sound when its arms turned, and the arms turned so quickly they almost blended together. My dog used his paw to stop the sprinkler so he could get a drink of water. We always thought he was the smartest of dogs to do that.
My dad was never thrilled with our sprinkler jumping because the lawn took a beating, and he loved his lawn. In our neighborhood, men were judged by the quality of their lawns. My father mowed his every Saturday with the hand mower. He swore by that hand mower the whole of his life. It always cut the lawn exactly right he’d say. I liked to listen to him mowing. The mower blades clicked as they turned, and I could tell when my father changed direction because the mower would be quiet for a minute or two. My father would finish off by raking, and that too had a distinctive sound, a scraping sound. His pile of grass would get bigger and bigger as he raked, and he had to work harder to keep the pile moving. When he was done, the mowed grass went into a barrel and he’d dump it later in the afternoon.
My parents moved while I was in the Peace Corps, and I never lived in that house, but I stayed there summers. My Dad had a front lawn on two sides of the driveway. He kept his mower in the garage for the winter and got it sharpened every spring. I can remember my Dad asking me if I had noticed how great his lawn looked when I had parked in front of their house. I always told him it was the best lawn in the neighborhood, so green and lush. That always made him happy.
