Green Side Up

    That was our joke, when I worked for a lawn crew one summer at Leisure Village. (We called it Seizure Village.) Besides other tasks, we installed sod for new lawns, and to relieve the tedium we would shout, "Green side up!" to each other, as we rolled out the sod.
    We were also in charge of maintaining lawns, and the way we zipped around on those big Gravely tractors, we would sometimes give ourselves more work installing fresh sod, because in an instant, you could scalp a nice patch of grass right down to the bone. And being kids, we might tend to laugh like idiots if it happened. However, the homeowners didn't quite see it that way; they were neurotic about their lawns, and intensely competitive with their neighbors, if it came down to the slightest wisp of crabgrass, or heaven forbid a dandelion. They would get furious if we left the least little irregularity in the perfect green carpet, let alone a huge black patch of dirt where grass used to be.
    Now let's say you had one of the more finicky homeowners, who had given our boss trouble in the past, concerning the quality of his lawn service. And let's say that this finicky homeowner also had a prize rose bush in full bloom, nestled in an island in the midst of his expanse of perfect green sward. We were warned about the prized rosebush, and we took the warning seriously. We had to take things seriously, because these beasts of mowing machines that we rode, had an open cowl in front, where the exposed edges of the massive knives whirled just inches behind the opening. But let's say, for argument, that that this massive machine were to crash into the said prize rose bush in full bloom, completely shattering the trunk and spreading shredded roses everywhere, you would be right if you assumed that this would cause some dismay to the property owner.
    And here's the way it happened, and the way I narrowly avoided getting seriously maimed. My friend John Brady was driving the big Gravely that day, and towing the sweeper behind him. We had to leave the lawn immaculate, of course, so naturally we had to sweep up the unsightly clippings left by our mowers. That day I was operating the trimmer, an ordinary push mower, to trim around the bushes.
    In the middle of the lawn of this one house, there was a garden which contained the magnificent rosebush in bloom; the pride and joy of the resident, as we had been warned. I was trimming the bushes next to this garden, and now I had made fresh clippings on a section of the lawn where Brady had already mowed and swept. As he came around the house for his next pass, I motioned with hand signals, over the roar of the tractor, that he should make one more pass through here, so his sweeper could clean up my fresh clippings. Brady didn't understand what I meant, and he motioned to me that he had already mowed there, and he continued on his path around to the other side of the garden. As he approached I kept signaling: "No, this way, this way- go through here."
    At the last second, too late, he panicked and heaved the big machine over, to try to go the way I was motioning. Unfortunately, his maneuver swung the machine directly towards me, and in that split-second I leaped up and sideways. I'm not exaggerating to say that the huge cutting maw of the machine chopped past where my feet had just been, while I was still in the air. In any case, there was a loud rending crash behind me, the roar of the machine was suddenly choked off, and I looked back to see the tractor hanging at a forty-five degree angle on top of the wrecked rosebush, and Brady hanging over the handlebars amidst a swirling dust cloud. My first impression was that Brady's eyes were actually rolling around and around like in a cartoon. In any case, he had a most unusual shattered look, worse even than the rosebush; his panting mouth hung slackly open, his eyes were staring and he looked demented. Having just narrowly escaped getting my feet chopped off, I probably had an odd look myself, but all I could think of was how funny Brady looked, hunched over the ruin, and I began to laugh uncontrollably.
    As I doubled up in laughter, Brady continued to stare blankly right through me, completely in shock; but gradually his eyes focused, and finally a grin spread across his face. We had just averted what could have been a much more serious disaster, and presently, he too was laughing uproariously. So there we were, cracked up like our wits were astray, as our supervisor came around the corner to find out what all the commotion was about. He froze for a moment at what he saw; his icy look taking in the situation. This quickly put a chill upon our hilarity.
    The only thing he said was, "Get the hell out of here before Parker sees you." Parker was the owner of the company. So we slunk away quickly, to occupy ourselves somewhere else. Our long-suffering supervisor presumably made some story to Parker, and Parker presumably made some sort of restitution to the homeowner. What it was, we never found out, nor did we ever ask.
    Amazingly enough, Brady and I weren't fired, but I don't think we shouted "Green side up!" so much, for a while.

 

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