A few easy tips for the mileage conscious mower

Published 9/27/05

What with fuel being a necessity in the here and now and what with me being an inhabitant of the here and now, I really don’t pay attention to the price of gasoline when I top off my tank. In fact, these days I’m more likely to “half it off” rather than “top it off.”

But something caught my attention a few weeks ago when I filled up my red five-gallon polyethylene gas can in preparation for that weekly ritual whereby I lower the level of my lawn. I think what caught my eye was the $15 receipt.

Knowing that I get about three yards to a can, I stood there that day among the fumes and did the simple math. After taking the three into the fifteen, putting the five up there on top, multiplying my whole numbers, calculating the sum, and carrying the can—to the van, that is—I figured it was costing me about $5 in fuel to mow my grass just once! I knew immediately that it was time to make lawn tractor fuel economy a personal priority. So here’s what I’ve been doing on the back stretch of summer to improve my mowing mileage:

• First of all, I am using my cruise control when I’m out on the open yard.

• Being a man, of course, I used to enjoy jumping on the accelerator, laying rubber in the grass, pulling wheelies through my yard and showing off my cutting blade. But aggressive driving—man driving—is a drain on your tank. So these days I’m leaving the garage early on Saturday so I don’t have to tailgate or mow anyone over getting back to the house before Notre Dame’s opening kickoff. Like the Irish, I’m now getting better yardage.

• I’m also making it a point not to let the engine idle when my wife comes out while I’m mowing to discuss with me the banking transactions I’ve carefully recorded between ketchup stains on a Wendy’s sack. You know how you’re trying to yell back and forth over the engine, and you can’t hear each other so you yell louder and louder while everyone else in a two mile radius can clearly hear every word you’re saying because they’re not standing on top of the engine block? Well, we don’t do that anymore. I have found that it’s always better to turn off the engine, go indoors and then carefully represent your case for using a fast food bag as a balance sheet while improving your mileage.

• The more ambitious homeowner might take note of a mileage boosting technique that we did a few years ago but is paying off big dividends today. This strategy involves the landscaping of ponds and gardens, using lots of bags of bark and much more mulch, or even adding decks and tennis courts, where possible. Remember always the equation: More asphalt means less grass. Less grass means more lawn tractor fuel economy. And more law tractor fuel economy means less dependence on foreign oil.

• Because a heavier vehicle burns more gas, I’ve quit driving around the neighborhood with my lap full of kids. Of course, my “kid” is 20 so no sacrifice there. But parents who are proudly parading their kids around now might want to note that someday these tykes will be teenagers with driving licenses and how the gasoline will one day mysteriously evaporate from their mowing cans. I mean, why should they drive to the station and spend their weekly allowance when they can just gas up and go at the family can?

• Now here’s one that a lot people don’t think about—or maybe they just don’t talk about it. This involves playing with the property line between your yard and your neighbor’s as you mow. What you do is, week by week, gradually and unnoticeably, bring the edge of their yard over into yours (are you following me?), and by the end of the summer, your neighbors are mowing nearly half of your yard—and maybe even trimming your rose bushes—without even realizing it. (Just kidding, Gary and Mary Ann.)

Well, fortunately we’ll soon be parking the mower for the winter. But until then, try these tips at home and see if you, too, can reduce your dependence on foreign oil and especially the local unleaded.

Last we knew: Lots of morons were still at large

Published 9/20/05

Ever wonder what’s going through the mind of a mortal as he, she or it trashes a bridge at a place such as Shadyside Park?

Could it be, “Dude! I got me a bridge!”

Or, “Thanks Mom and Dad for nuthin’!”

Maybe, “Put this on your front page!”

But I choose to believe it’s more like this: “ .”

In fact, I’m working on a new Pull No Punches Style Manual which recommends that the media refer to people who participate in random acts of destruction as “morons.” Where an adjective is needed, “stupid” or “brainless” will suffice.

And so, using the JW Style Manual, last Friday’s account of the vandalization of the Shadyside Park bridge on the front page of the Herald Bulletin, would read, “Sometime after the park closed at 11 p.m. Tuesday, morons bent back about 30 feet of the aluminum fencing and damaged 14 of the fence’s structural posts, which are interspersed every five feet. The morons also smashed the glass globes on four lampposts in the parking lot near the playground.”

My manual will explain the line of reasoning for using a word such as “moron” as opposed to more traditional editorial usage of words such as “vandal” or “hoodlum.” That meandering line goes something like this: Down through the decades of cultural history, we have celebrated the exploits of rebels, delinquents, vandals, hooligans, outlaws and ruffians, frequently referring to them as “anti heroes.” Not knowing what an “anti” is, these types thought they were being called “heroes.” Nothing affirms a rebel more than calling him, her or it a “rebel.” I know I always found it quite validating. But again I’m referring to anarchists bent on random acts of destruction.

A Pull No Punches manual would have helped news organizations as they struggled to report a story that appeared in this and other papers last summer. In that story, a Waco, Texas, man was sentenced to 99 years for stealing a cell phone and then assaulting its owner. It didn’t help that he was a convicted felon who had 15 misdemeanor and 12 trespassing convictions in the prior 14 years. Nor did it help that he went on a profanity laced outburst at his trial that included this widely reported testimony:

“There’s things I choose to do. Like, if I go in a store and choose to take a Snicker’s bar. If you catch me, you catch me. If not, I’m going to go home and eat it up and go about my business, dawg.”

This guy is a moron on several accounts. First, he was caught with the cell phone after its owner called the number from another other cell phone and heard its distinctive “Aggie War Hymn” ring when the thief actually answered the phone. Second, he’s a moron because he was a habitual criminal, including a felony for injuring an elderly man. Third, he’s a moron because he punctuated his rambling sentence with the word “dawg.”

It might be noted that the Waco Tribune story began this way: “A Waco man whose woeful attempt to rob…” Based on my new style book, that story could begin, “A wacko man whose woeful attempt to rob…”

Technically, there’s no reason to use the word “moron” or “wacko” in this story because showing beats telling any day.

Now some will protest that I’m editorializing and ultimately marginalizing the morons of the world. But people who say this are morons. And no, I refuse to love the moron and hate his moronic misconduct.

Now far be it from me to be a language Nazi who’s determined to drain the color out of language and insists on using “utility tunnel overlay” instead of “manhole cover,” because of imagined sexist implications. My style book allows for lots of other terms for the word “vandal.” There’s “cretin,” “dolt,” “imbecile,” “schmuck,” “schnook” “lummock,” “addle brained,” “empty headed,” “ass,” “loser,” or “nincompoop.”

According to my new style guide, these synonyms would be easily interchangeable, if even harsh enough, in describing the morons who trashed the Shadyside bridge.

Fall is here and it’s time to find the fairways

Published 9/13/05

One of the reasons I’m so fond of September is that it’s the start of the golfing season. At least for me.

For a lot of golfers, this is the time of year when they head back to reality and the workplace. It’s a perfect time for wannabes who’ve been waiting behind the trees to take over the fairways.

Wannabes play a short season. Their window of opportunity passes quickly. Before long, the leaves have covered their best intentions. So I hit the driving range last week for the first time and plan to play this week.

I suppose real golfers go directly to the first tee after loosening up their swing with a bucket of balls. But I’ve got to work up some courage, meet with my shrink a couple of times, drive a few laps around the golf course’s parking lot, look to see who’ll be playing behind me and then head quickly for the first hole.

I’ve often speculated as to why I’m such a klutz on the course. Do I just not have the golf gene? Is it my inability to speak golf as a second language—my unfamiliarity with words like bogey, birdie and gimme? Actually, I think it’s because I used to make fun of golf when I was younger. I liked to quote Mark Twain who said, “Golf is a good walk spoiled.”

By the time I discovered that it could be a walk to remember and took some lessons from a pro, it was too late. The game had my number. Golf exacted its revenge from the beginning.

For me, the beginning was Boca Re-al, which today is a hayfield at the corner of Scatterfield and Cross Street, a weedy set of greens grown awry. The good thing about Boca was that I could hook, slice or whiff and no one stared. At least for very long. You didn’t have to be a sober John Daly to play Boca. Because it had a loose dress code, you would see guys playing in long pants and no shirts. Not only could you play out of a partner’s golf bag, you could also play out of his grocery bag.

A few years back, I inexplicably found myself—along with my dad—playing the Eagle Point Golf Resort in Bloomington, one of Indiana’s premier golf courses. Because I was antsy about the regulars accumulating in their carts behind us, I was looking backward more than forward. And because I didn’t know the course, I tried to follow the twosome in front of us and hit into their divots. On one of the holes on the front nine, there’s a rise where the putting green is slightly obscured. So I chipped onto the green in an area just behind the twosome. They looked back briefly, looked up and walked on. When we arrived at our shots, I realized that I had actually chipped onto the next tee platform and missed the green by a kilometer or two.

It was a long stressful day but fortunately on the back nine we were clobbered by a huge rainstorm. Dad and I jumped in our carts and headed for the clubhouse. However, the location of the clubhouse was not immediately clear, we missed our exit and, well, you get the picture. By the time we found the clubhouse, our bags were full of water. We drove behind the clubhouse and dumped them discretely. Clubs in hand, I briefly eyed the big blue dumpster behind the Eagle Pointe clubhouse.

Speaking of water, I was surprised to find myself driving consistently while at the Killbuck driving range last week. Because I hadn’t played in a couple of years but was trying to get ready for the fall season, I continued to swing away even after a rain cloud parked itself over Killbuck for about ten minutes. While others ran for the barn, I continued to impress myself with a number of lengthy tee shots. I wasn’t going to let a little shower ruin my game. And then, in what may be one for the record books, I let go with a drive that, well, I didn’t get the distance on the ball but I know the slippery one iron went a good 50 yards.

This is not so much an announcement of the fall golfing season as it is fair warning.

A pack rat escapes the trap and learns to purge

Published 9/6/05

At one time in my life I had a pile of scrapbooks with crumbling yellow newspaper clippings recapping every game the Pittsburgh Pirates played between, say, 1963 and 1968. I also had about a hundred back issues of Sporting News that I picked up in a trade for a trunk of baseball cards in what was probably not the best trade I ever negotiated.

And then I met my wife, who’s made a career of classifying clutter wherever she sees it and sending pack rats packing. Take for instance our recent dialogue—okay, our monologue—about my hoarding habits. She said that unless I wanted to rent a storage unit—or my own apartment—it was time for me to prioritize and purge.

I’ll confess to being a compulsive collector. Whether it’s newspapers and magazines, fascinating articles from those newspapers and magazines, books, records and cassettes, ballcaps, baseball memorabilia, you name it, I save it.

My eclectic collection of magazines has included back issues of Esquire, Rolling Stone, Runner’s World, Wittenburg Door, Christianity Today, The New Yorker, Writers & Poets, and, even though I’m not one of their graduates and I’ve never been to Oregon, the alumni magazine of the University of Portland. Go figure.

At one time, that is until three years ago when my wife and I had another monologue, I possessed every issue of Notre Dame Magazine published between 1985 and 2002, plus a few vintage issues from the late ’70s that I picked up at the garage sale of a fellow collector and fellow alum.

When my wife and son went continent hopping recently, they knew what to bring me—editions of Nairobi’s Daily Nation, The London Daily-Telegraph and a special issue of the New York Times, published particularly for international readers. And for collectors like me.

I also have a weakness for old LPs, and their successors in the line of audio technology, plastic cassettes. Rather, I once had that weakness. In my most recent purging, I said goodbye, Yellow Brick Road and Elton John and farewell to Carole King, the Fixx, Roger Daltrey, a live two-cassette set of Joe Jackson, and all the boys in .38 Special. I did have presence of mind to salvage my Rush collection. I have amassed nearly everything recorded by Geddy Lee and the guys on cassette and wax, in case the Smithsonian’s interested.

Then there’s my “sample file,” which is really more about memories than about putting my work under glass. Until last week, I had a copy of every lousy magazine article, brochure, newsletter, press kit, speech, research paper, billboard, direct mail, annual report, trade ad, consumer ad or verse of haiku I’d ever written.

In some cases, where a client or supervisor made changes prior to publication, I kept my original draft for proof that my version was better.

Some would say it’s an illness.

At least that’s the view of Parade magazine, a supplement that appears in this newspaper each Sunday. Ironically, in the midst of last weekend’s purging, Parade ran a story with the headline, “Are You A Pack Rat?” (I’m sure you saved yours. Go back and read it. It starts on page 8.) My wife spotted the article first and started reading it to me from across the room. Here’s a transcript of our actual conversation:

Wife: Nearly a million Americans suffer from a troubling psychological disorder…
Me: What’s that, dear?
Wife: It’s called compulsive hoarding, saving things that most people consider worthless.
Me: Really…
Wife: Here are some of the signs of compulsive hoarding…Severe anxiety when trying to throw out an object, an excessive amount of clutter that limits living space, fears about needing items that could be thrown away…
Me: Honey, could you save that article for me? I think I might use that at some point. WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH IT?! PLEASE DON’T THROW THAT AWAY! GIVE THAT TO ME, DEAR!!

By the time I wrestled the little supplement away from her, I learned that “pack rats” and “clutter bugs” often “feel a heightened sense of responsibility for making sure an object’s potential isn’t wasted” but that “they can get help from online networks to get rid of years of clutter.”

Well, I’ve now made sure that the article’s potential wasn’t wasted. But who needs a chat group when your wife’s TV viewing habits include Mission Organization.