AUGUST 26, 2024 – Ever since I was a kid I’ve been persnickety about yard and garden landscaping and maintenance. If you asked my wife about this self-assessment she’d say, “Huh?!” followed by “If what he said were true, our yard at home wouldn’t look so sinfully scraggly, and he’d get around to pruning [“that huge shrub” (a mature yew)] by the driveway that is growing halfway into [our neighbor’s] yard.”
What she wouldn’t know or appreciate, however, is that when I was of elementary school age, I cringed when neighbor kids, the paper boy or some random person made tracks in new fallen snow in our front yard. I wanted that snow-blanketed space to appear as pristine as possible for as long as possible.
Likewise in the summer, I wanted our lawn and yard to be the envy of the neighborhood. Two years after we’d moved into our new house—my parents’ dream house to which they had devoted much time and effort—I was between third and fourth grade. One of my favorite diversions after dark but before bedtime was to browse through the latest Spencer Gifts catalog. Among the “repeat” offerings were (a) a package of a dozen small phosphorescent plastic squares with an adhesive backing, and (b) a “fishpond” kit consisting of a heavy-gauge plastic, kidney shaped liner (for a hole that would have to be dug) and a potted lily-pad. (I’d never heard of a “koi pond,” and apparently neither had Spencer Gifts.)
I pictured sticking three of the phosphorescent squares across the front of each step to our front stoop. With the appearance of small electric lights, I imagined, the luminescent squares would enhance the entrance to our house in a fashion nowhere else to be found in the neighborhood—not even the Moore’s. The fishpond, I figured, would grace our front yard, most likely two-thirds of the distance between the edge of the driveway and the sprawling boxelder tree, again making a statement of refinement unique to our street if not the entire town. I hadn’t figured out the fish part, but that was of lesser concern to me, since passers-by wouldn’t be able to see the fish, anyway.
The lighting squares were eminently affordable, given the reliable adage, “you get what you pay for,” though I wouldn’t become acquainted with that dictum until after my purchase. The fishpond kit, on the other hand, would require several weekly rounds of allowance, supplemented by my Christmas money, which I’d guarded scrupulously. To accelerate my financial ability to manage the acquisition, I talked my mother into upping my allowance in exchange for taking on some extra chores. By the Fourth of July I was ready to place my order with Spencer Gifts. To her credit, Mother passed no judgment, and at my request gave me a check for the amount of my purchase, made out to Spencer Gifts. I reimbursed her with paper money and lots of coins. Dad knew nothing of my order—or landscaping plan.
When the package arrived, I couldn’t open it fast enough. The fishpond liner was a shade of turquoise and packaged so tightly inside the carton it had the appearance of a junk car compressed into a huge solid metal block like the ones stacked up in Schwartz’s salvage yard just north of town. It took muscle and patience to open the liner all the way. Once it lay on our living room carpet I was underwhelmed by the liner’s color and dimensions and shifted my hope to the potted lily-pad, which, according to the directions, could take a while to grow.
The “lights” for the steps, meanwhile, were also less impressive than they’d been depicted in the catalog. They looked more like squares of plastic tape. Nevertheless, I decided to reserve judgment until that evening after dark. I peeled the backing off the adhesive and carefully positioned the squares on the face of each front step. Several hours later the “elegant lighting” was put to the test. All that came of it was a barely perceptible glow—certainly not enough to compete with the real light over the doorway, which light did a good job of illuminating the whole front stoop. The strong suit of the squares, it turned out, was the adhesive. What barely glowed in the dark would stick to the concrete steps for many decades.
When Dad got home from work that day, I revealed my grand plan for giving our house and yard a touch of class. Since the phosphorescent squares were barely noticeable, he gave them a pass. The fishpond, however, was a different story. When I showed it to him, he said that “We should be able to find a place for it somewhere in the backyard.” Our expansive backyard was semi-wild, and he could be confident that the fishpond could be located almost anywhere and be well hidden from view. That was not the case with the front yard, of course, and when I mentioned my plan for putting it there, Dad made it clear that there would be a change in plan. Since I had to rely on him to dig the hole, my only choice was to go along.
If I’d been a bit off base with the fishpond and phosphorescent “lighting” from Spencer Gifts, I certainly wasn’t with my standards for the lawn. It was Dad’s bailiwick, and though he did a yeoman’s job—fertilizing and putting down weed-killer in the spring, watering religiously over the summer months, and using a leaf sweeper in the fall to maintain the appearance of a dark green wall-to-wall carpet until the snow came—as the years passed, lawn care became a losing battle for Dad.
By the time I was a teenager, he’d uncharacteristically relaxed his standards to reflect reality. I refused, however, to relax my standards. I relieved my frustration by hiring myself out to Fred Moore across the street. The Moore’s had a beautifully landscaped river lot, and I had much to work with. I started at ground level, you might say, mowing the nearly two-acre lot. Fred then promoted me to shrubbery trimmer, and from there, on my own initiative I became the Edger in Chief.
My tools were crude: an old serving spoon, a long but very dull knife, an old set of hand-held grass clippers, a whisk broom and a wheel barrow. The Moore’s had over 200 feet of curb and sidewalks to edge, and I went whole hog. Fred was astonished by the outcome, and even Ruth, his wife, who adhered to very high standards of interior décor and clothing, commented positively about my edging “program.” The result of my overall efforts at the Moore’s gave me great satisfaction, and for a time Dad allowed me to transfer my newfound skill to our yard.
Now fast forward to our family’s place in Connecticut . . . with special emphasis on cut. (Cont.)
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
