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Brooks Peterson

Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com

Monday, August 9, 1999

There's mower to it than meets the eye, friend

Corpus Christi Online

   As I write this, I am applying the finishing touches to a week which, until yesterday evening, had not quite lived up to the glittering expectations I had for it.
   To say the least.
   For a good-sized chunk of that time, I have been wrestling with the computer gods, and it hasn't even been a contest. Imagine Mr. Peepers squaring off against Stone Cold Steve Austin. The issue was never in doubt. Again and again, just as I thought I would sneaking up and taking the monster by surprise, it would round on me, and squashing me like a bug. Files disappear . . . then turn up unaccountably when I go groveling to our computer gurus for assistance. The computer gods, up there on Mount Microsoft, or wherever they hang, laughed great booming laughs at my expense.
   The week, suffice it to say, was in the dumper, and the Garbage Gobbler was trundling down the street to apply the coup de grace.
   Ah, but then it happened. Even as the computer gods hooted and hee-hawed, the servitors of another species of super-beings, the fix-it elves, took mercy on me: After holding my lawnmower in bondage for a month or so - Waiting For Parts, the fix-it elves' own version of purgatory - they completed their work and turned it over to me. And it came in a whisker under the estimate.
   That's the kind of thing that can turn a bad week around. And not just because the price was right. Shoot, that was the least of it. Four weeks of Power Mower Deprivation Syndrome tend to put such petty considerations in perspective.
   Thing was, I was once again a person of substance. I could hold my head up in the neighborhood once more. I was . . . well, not a solid citizen, exactly - not till I attack the flower beds yet again - but at least something a step or two above your social bottom-feeder.
   Truth to tell, I had grievously neglected the poor old mower. It was not, after all, one of your fancy-pants mowers - just an off-brand unit I'd picked up at a discount emporium.
   But if I wasn't good to it, it was good to me. The five rip-snortin' horses from the Briggs & Stratton were more than equal to all but the most spectacularly neglected back-yard high grass, and while it did not mulch quite as effectively as it did during its youth - much the same could be said about us, it seems to me - it still got the job done with a couple of extra passes.
   But, of course, the inevitable reckoning arrived: Came the day when my self-propelled mower was, well, no longer self-propelled. Driven by who knows what mad impulse, I undid the whoozis that contains the relevant controls and discovered that a flimsy little component (either plastic or pot metal - I forget) had failed. After a half-hearted stab at improvising some sort of fix, I regained my sanity and guiltily slapped the housing back together. Sure, inquiring minds want to know, and all that, but ever since I stuck my finger in the pencil sharpener back in the third grade I've been aware that there are certain areas of human endeavor where discretion is indicated.
   So: The self-propulsion mechanism was hors de combat. Well, I could live with that. So for a few weeks I pushed the thing around the yard without benefit of mechanical assistance. Wasn't much fun, but it got the grass cut.
   The final straw (so to speak) was when, due to who knows what variety of mechanical spite, the driving wheels locked up and refused to turn when I pulled the machine back toward me. You have any idea how many times you need to pull a lawnmower back toward you when you mow a lawn? I do.
   Obviously, strong measures were indicated. So it was off to the fix-it emporium . . . and you know the rest.
   Ah, but now my grass-slashing, leaf-mulching, critter-terrorizing, pollution-spouting wonder is back - and, if anything, better than ever. The same day I brought it home, we headed into the deep stuff - the scary stuff, where only the truly committed (or, perhaps, those who should be) dare to venture.
   It was almost . . . Pattonesque. I went through the greenery like a knife through warm butter. (Or is it a warm knife through cool better?) Like Sherman through Georgia. Like the Third Army rushing to Bastogne.
   Perhaps it strikes you as a bit . . . eccentric . . . for someone to be so enthused about following a power mower around a yard. Ah, but then you obviously have not been engaged in battle with the computer gods. For someone who has been so occupied, attacking a rank but unresisting front yard with a thundering lawn implement is sweet surcease indeed.
   Tomorrow: The back yard.
   (Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772 or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com)



Brooks Peterson

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