Lawn care: I'm not my father

[mapsedge]

Like many people, I don't want to become like my same gender parent, in this case: my father. (It usually isn't necessary to be so specific, but you just never know with some people.) I find that I look like him, especially around the mouth and jawline, and in the belly. But there is one area where I am so not like my father that he himself wouldn't recognize me if this was his only clue.

There are no dandelions in the yard.

I was playing in the backyard with my son and daughter the other, a tale in and of itself for the simple joy of hitting a plastic ball with a plastic bat. With K pitching, I hit a line drive straight into center field (the washtubs), and made to run the imaginary bases (the future home of our hopeful detached garage). When I got back to "home plate", K was there waiting with the ball and I dropped to my stomach to slide into home before she could tag me.

I laid in the grass at my daughter's feet and she pretended to be knocked down, and we laid there, in the grass, together, giggling, when it struck me:

When I was growing up, I would no more have laid down in my yard that I would have laid down in a field of thistle, nettles, dust, and dandelions, which is exactly what it would have been had I actually laid down. I wasn't even willing to go barefoot.

Now, I own the ol' homestead, and with a few years of effort and fertilizer, I have a yard that is soft on the feet, a deep carpet of green. There are a few bare spots that still trouble me, but by and large, we have a nice yard, a great place to play...

And a pretty nice place to lay down after playing hard.