Lawns
“What!?! They can’t do this!”
The city had confiscated my tax return! I couldn’t afford this. I needed that money.
“I told you they weren’t going to let you get away with this. You can’t fuck with the cops or the city.”
I was pissed. I suppose I knew all along she was probably right.
“Well, fuck that. I’m not going to let them get away with this.”
“What are you going to do? There’s nothing you can do. We can’t afford a lawyer and you would lose.”
“Bullshit! The is …. I am going to go down there and have it out with Burger.”
“Don’t do that. You’re going to end up in jail is what is going to happen.”
“I’m not going hit him, but I am sure as shit going to go down there and give him a piece of my mind!”
“Don’t do this. We don’t have bail money.”
I was already out the door. It was only a couple of blocks to the city hall, and I started marching down there.
Burger and I had been going around and around for about a year now. He was a wannabe cop, a meter maid. He’d walk around downtown putting chalk marks on car tires, and if the car hadn’t moved in 2 hours, he’d write a ticket. He also ticketed folks for not mowing their lawns. This is where we were butting heads.
Ticket after ticket, fine after fine, compounding fines for not paying fines. I didn’t care, I wasn’t going to pay it, and I wasn’t going to mow my lawn. Now, they took my tax return!
I was running through my points in my head as I marched.
“Yeah, I understand that the town has to be presentable, blah, blah. But my yard doesn’t look abandoned, it is wildscaped!”
“For God’s sake man, I am feeding the bees, if the bees die we all die. For fuck sake.”
I climbed the marble steps up the city hall/cop shop/jail/city clerk/DUI class/court/who knows what else. I noted the wear patterns in the steps. I wonder how long that takes… When was this built? Must have been what in the 30s? A lot of these buildings have that WPA look to them…
The brass and glass doors swung heavily as I opened them. Where is he? Where is his office. Ah, I noted a small sign cut out of cardboard in the shape of an arrow.
I turned left, up the stairs again, to a large, and very much closed door. Another sign, handwritten, taped to the door, “Out to lunch, back around 1.”
It was 2:30 already? Dammit. I started banging on the door. Nothing. More banging.
Somebody poked their head out of the hall to the cop shop.
“Hey, do you know where Burger is?”
“Nope, he’s been out most of the day, doubt he will be back.”
“Something I can help you with?”
“No, thanks, I need to talk to him about fines.”
“OK, well, not sure when he will be back.”
I never did find him. Probably for the best. Never did get my money back either.
Eventually he got promoted from meter maid, and got hired on as a full fledged cop. Gun and everything. Years later, he made a run for chief, it didn’t happen. I don’t know where he is now, I stay out of townie business, and his family is one of those that can point back to a house that 3+ generations ago, some clan member owned.
The city, me, and now, my wife, kept going around and around on this lawn thing, year after year. When Jenn was running a business from our house, I had to acquiesce to mowing the front yard.
Jenn said, “It’s like a mullet, all business in the front, and all party out back.”
Still it killed me. Wielding the whirling blades of death. Wildflowers cut down, mice running, countless insects decimated, all in the name of… I don’t know.
Mowing in the Midwest is some kind of social insanity. In the summer months, you can always hear the buzzing of a mower running somewhere, often many running, all day long, every day of the week. Unless it is raining.
My neighbor across the street is retired. He has one of those riding lawn mowers. And a regular one, and the weed wacker, and leaf blower, and all the things. They had this magnificent tree in their yard. Great big Maple, must have been at least 60 feet.
A few years back they had a big crew out, and they dismantled that tree piece by piece and hauled it away. Must have taken them 3 or 4 days to do it. It was sad, I really liked that tree. I didn’t bother asking why. I am pretty sure they didn’t like the “mess” it made on their deck and perfectly manicured lawn.
Twice a year, some big tanker truck pulls up and sprays something toxic all over their lawn. Jenn yelled over there a few times, “Your dog is going to get cancer.”
It’s like a disease. One guy fires up his lawn mower, and soon it starts to spread. The neighbor on the other side, hears it, and figures he probably better mow his too. You can hear it, spreading out around the town. Like a cancer…
A few years ago my wife shut down her business. Which fired back up my rebellion on mowing. Arguments ensued.
“You gotta mow the yard, the cops are going to ticket you.
The neighbors are going to get annoyed, and they are going to harass the cops to do something.”
One day I literally cried.
“I can’t do it, it’s awful.”
“I fire up those whirling blades of death, and the daisies hear it and they close up and cower.”
“I run down, tunnels in the grass where the deer mice run and hide.”
“There is nothing left for the deer, nothing for the bees, not to mention all the bumblebees that I cut down.”
“I can’t do it.”
Eventually, the Chief of Police stopped by. We talked.
It has been 14 years since Burger and times have changed, even here. This new Chief, he’s like, “Look, I get it.”
“We have some other folks around that are doing things different too. Like the guy 2 blocks down with those rock sculpture things. But you just gotta make it look like it isn’t abandoned. We gotta fight this blight from spreading.”
I worked with it. Some areas get trampled down just by walking. Some areas, I can put cardboard down for a couple of days and all the grass lays down and the flowers pop back up. You can trim here, put in some garden boxes here, frame in this space with some rocks. You can wildscape it.
It makes a huge difference. One of our kid’s friends was over and he looked at us and said, “You have a LOT of wildlife in your yard.”
He’s right, we have a lot of wildlife in our yard. There are reasons for them to want to be here. Unlike the desert of perfectly manicured grass across the street.
Logan planted milkweed, from seed no less, impressive! Now we get Monarchs, and they lay their eggs, and we get to watch all of it.
We have snowshoe hares, plenty to eat, and places to hide.
Deer, lots and lots of deer. Ravens, crows, woodpeckers, bees, bumblebees, wasps, you name it.
We even get a bear now and then. We stopped putting out the gas station’s old sandwiches but before we did, wolves, coyotes, red fox, dogs, dogs, dogs, because you know, people let their dogs run “free” up here. That’s a whole other story.
When we go on our walk, and come back around towards our house, you can hear it. All the birds, bees, and everything else, they are hanging out at our place.
Last year the State put my lawn battle to rest. They made it illegal for towns and cities to force people to mow their lawns.
God damn liberals! ;)