How Many of You Remember These Push Mowers?

Push Lawn Mower - Free Clipart

Growing up on the farm, we used to take turns mowing the big yard at our grandparent’s house in the summers. They lived up the gravel road from us in the typical white farmhouse.


We spent a lot of time at their house when school was out. We helped Mamaw in the garden, churned butter on the front porch, used the grinder to grind up corn for the baby chicks, and got our turn at pushing the lawn mower. We thought all these chores were fun in those days. I’m not exactly sure why, but none of us ever complained about doing anything. In fact, we couldn’t wait until it was our turn to push this lawn mower.

We would sit on the porch, swat the flies with homemade fly swatters, and wait for our turn to come up. The summers were very hot because of all the humidity. Everybody always went around with beads of sweat on our faces. Flies and knats were thick in the air. We just chalked it up to one of the unpleasant facts that came along with summer. It wasn’t until I moved away, as an adult, that I realized summer wasn’t like that everywhere.

Once the chores were finished, we would play in the yard, the smell of new-mown grass fresh in the air. We used to get grass clippings all over us. They would stick to the sweat, the same as the fragments of the corn would when we rode in the back of the corn wagon during harvest. It would itch like the devil, but we didn’t mind, and always rushed to the wagon whenever we could.

When I think back to that life today, I think we were always looking for something exciting to do. Anything out of the ordinary was exciting to us because we never left the farm much, except to attend school. We wanted the summer to go on forever, but of course, it never did.