The Lawn Lady

Ten little toes . . .and one little bum . . .
Is Thomas finall warming up to Callum??? Signs point to yes . . .Also, check out the socks!
BFF
We have the most beautiful baby boy in the world. He now soothes himself to sleep by sucking on his thumb. Adorable.

In English class, during the short story unit I teach, we often focus on the idea of "authority," and how it can, in many ways, "plague" our youth. Its fun; we check out John Updike's "A&P," which is a story about a non-hero who quits his job in front of his pompous boss just to impress girls who end up not giving a crap about him anyway. We read Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," where, for hundreds of years, the elders in a community impose this "lottery" on everyone--the "winner" gets stoned to death by the others. And we read an Irish story called "A Masculine Protest," which zeroes in on a boy named Dennis, who, fed up with the authoritative layabouts his parents exercise on him, runs away, only to find that being on your own really sucks. When you are young, authority sucks. That's just it. I guess its sort of a rite of passage, in a way; I mean, it wouldnt be "growing up in America" unless we had grownups to complain about, hate, or swear a vendetta upon. Am I right?

My thoughts turned to this idea after I got a funny message from my friend Johnny Crockett; both of us spent part of our childhood living in "Rolling Pines Estates," a condo complex in Easton. It was loaded with kids all our age--and, I have to say, there were some real derelicts. Even when I didnt live in Rolling Pines (and especially when I did), I'd often ride my bike over to the sprawling yards on fall afternoons for a daily game of touch football. This, like so many other testosterone driven adolescent games of touch football, would ultimately turn deadly, and Gino McLean, who was more often than not suspended from school, would tell Sonny Caliendo just how good his mom was last night, and then all hell would break loose.

It was around this time that the "lawn lady" usually showed up.

I still dont know her name, and, in 5 or 6 years of being associated with her, I have never seen her wear "not" the same outfit. Everything in her life seemed navy blue: navy blue dickies pants, pulled up high to reveal a diaper-like hindparts region, navy blue knit polo shirt, with (more often than not) a frumpy looking collar, often flipped up to protect against sunburn. She interrupted our "Lord of the Flies" football game by pulling up in her navy blue GMC pickup, and when she got out, we knew our fun had just begun. Poor lady.

She and her husband both took care of the landscaping at Rolling Pines, and they did it with such aplomb that the lawn somehow became their "baby." (They did, in fact, have children . . .as was the rumor . . .and the rumor was also that they were daughters. Who were hot). They were also from Ireland, and the lawn lady spoke with such a brogue as to only give the Rolling Pines posse more ammo with which to assail her. Our problem with her was her dual-nature, which I guess is a problem with most adults; they have a hard time being their true selves. Around my parents (and all the other parents) she was kind, and spoke with the gentle Irish demeanor of an oatmeal stirring grandmother. But if she caught any of us kids playing on her meticulously manicured lawns, then there was hell to pay. She used words like "bloody" and "wanker," as I remember, and she spared no punches making fun of what she called "wiggerish" clothes or "girly" haircuts. The Rolling Pines kids fired back with comments like "you're just a fat lawn bitch," or "why dont you get a real job." Some kids, as I remember, made up rumors that the lawn lady's children died in a tragic accident, and they had no problem extorting this fact in front of her. (I should point on, for "Nannie's" sake, that I never took part in these battles. Not only had I nothing to work with --I was fat with zits and buck teeth--but also I was morbidly afraid of authority. I merely watched). She would yell at us for being sloppy, careless kids, ignorant of all her Irish horticulturalship. We lambasted her for being so mean, when all we were doing was trying to play some ball after school. I think, one time, briefly, Gino McLean fought her.

Adults always win these battles, inevitably, even if it takes a matter of years for them to do so. Ultimately, selfish and bratty kids grow up, have epiphanies, and realize the misadventures of their youth were in so many ways misguided, useless, and cold bloodedly mean. Its the way of Sammy in "A&P." He makes his stand, he speaks his voice, and he quits his job--all for naught. He ends up, at the end of the piece, jobless and girless. Instantly, he realizes his foolhardy and impulsive precocious behavior, and he knows he's made a mistake. The last line of the story reverberates with the reader when he says "I realized, at the point, just how difficult life was going to be from here on out."

John, in his visit back from Nevada last week, informed me that he did some "reconnaissance work" over at Rolling Pines, a place we've all long abandoned, and saw none other than the lawn lady, donning her navy blues, doing what she seemingly loves to do--work the land and make it beautiful. Its a noble profession, and now, as an adult and homeowner, I understand the value of being proud of your work, and wanting to keep little pukes off it (although we were just having a good time). I wonder what life is like for her now. As a teacher, I can tell you that kids are much ruder and unabashed when it comes to authority than they were when I was a kid. I wonder why she's still at it, and I wonder if she ever remembers us--the little punks of Rolling Pines