poop beetle: my father had a lawn fairy, too 5.2005 This is a great story. It's not my story, but I got permission & thank you for this, too. I'm going to have to build a lawn monument/memorial to all kind lawn fairies out there (I'll make it big with lots of rocks and ancient looking sun dials and sand. I'll purify it with regular bon fires- whatever it takes to give thanks and keep down the grass)
After divorcing my mother, my father moved into a trailer and a bit of an alcoholic haze. The trailer was the worst, oldest, dirtiest in a not wholly depressing trailer park at the end of a dirt road cul de sac. He was not often moved to do yard work. After a particularly lengthy spell between lawn mowings (something about the mower being a bit difficult to start) he noticed one morning that the lawn had been mown. (Or was it mowed? We'll never know.) In a complete 180 from your reaction, my father, instead of gratitude, felt offended. "Who was this person who felt that I'm not fit to take care of myself? Who condescended to mow my damned lawn?" he thought to himself. In order to draw out the nosy do-gooder, my father purposely left the grass to do what it does best. Two weeks later he came home to find that the lawn had again been cut. Careful observation (or what passes for it) revealed that the lawn across the "street" had also been cut the same day. Could it really be the old man whose gout makes him nearly immobile who was mowing dad's lawn? Did the old man make his wife do it? How bizarre. By now more curious than angry, dad decided to let the situation alone. Two weeks later dad hears a small engine start out behind the trailer across the way. Hoping to catch sight of the lawn fairy, he peeked out from behind the smelly-ass curtains in the bedroom. After a moment, the old man who hobbled when under his own power came barreling at something approaching the speed of sound on a huge riding mower out from behind his place. He zoomed around his own yard, making delicate spiral turns to trim near the tree, and the permanently parked car. When he was done with his own yard, he tore ass across the dirt road, and started in on my old man's lawn. Not really knowing how to respond, dad did nothing.
PS.
Over time, the old guy and dad became friends, but they never mentioned the tacit relationship they'd built based on the mowing. They also never spoke about the money that would sometimes appear with no notes or envelopes in the mailbox across the street from time to time. I wish I could remember his name, because God love him, he drove 6 hours to come to my dad's funeral. But even knowing this, I prefer to think of the moment my dad peered out the window wondering exactly what to think about this very strange act of kindness.
