Build a Better Lawn Mower

I was going to college and we didn’t have any money to spare. So when our gas lawn mower burned up, (another story) we found a replacement at Good Will, only that one was a push mower.

You have to understand at time we had three kids, I went to school full time, worked for the University (Work-Study) during the day, worked at night, and drove truck on weekends, so such mundane tasks as lawn mowing were at the bottom of my list. Besides, I was (still am) allergic to fresh cut grass and the thought of using a push mower didn’t add to my enthusiasm. So now you can understand why the grass was somewhere near 8 or 10 inches high.

We lived in a trailer park and had a narrow, long lawn. I finally worked up the courage to try the hand-pushed mower. It didn’t take long to realize that this was more than a simple job. I had to back up the mower, then shove it forward as fast as I could, only to cut a few inches before the momentum was lost, then the process would have to be repeated. This was real WORK, and it was a HOT day! It took a little while to mow the first 6 feet or so, along the edge – right by my bike.

Now my bike was a 100cc Yamaha dirt bike that I built out of three other trashed bikes, for almost no money. It was a real mover. I could do a “wheelie” through the first two gears – not bad for a 100cc. I was very proud of that bike.

So here I was pushing a stupid mower and that bike was just sat there doing nothing. That’s when I got one of my brilliant ideas. I wired a wooden box to the lawn mower and filled it with bricks. That would give it the traction it would need. Then all that was necessary was to tie the mower to the bike. So far, so good. The mower had to be guided when pulled so I called my wife out to do the honors. She is good natured and will try almost anything once, and she agreed.

I started off slow and the mower actually worked – well sort of. It left some tufts of grass but they could be cut later with much less effort. If you have ever ridden a bike, you know it needs a little speed to have better control. So I gave it more gas. The bike didn’t even grunt, I think it probably could have pulled a cement truck. So we sped down the length of the lawn.

My wife was running behind the mower, guiding it as grass flew up, covering her from the waist down. She understood (sort of) and we turned around and made another run at it.

After two or three runs, it all came to a stop when she looked up and saw our neighbor out by the fence with his movie camera, laughing and filming the whole procedure. She threw down the mower handle and went into the house. No amount of coaxing would get her to come back out, and for some reason the neighbor with the camera wouldn’t lend a hand either.

I finished the job the hard way – all by myself