When I would visit my father in the spring each year we would have the same conversation. "Dad, I think you need to get a new lawn mower." When I would look at the machine it was clear to me that the walk behind power mower, which he purchased from K-Mart, had seen much better days. The paint was coming off. The wheels wobbled. The bar that you hold, or else the mower shuts off, was stuck in the on position. Yet, every year, when I would attempt to start the mower, it would start on the first pull.
My father died in November of 2004. In the summer of 2006 I sold his house. Most of the contents of the house were either given away, or placed in a dumpster. It took a lot of dumpsters. He liked to keep stuff. Some of the stuff in the house I brought with me to my new house in North Chili. I was determined not to let the new house become as cluttered as dad's house had become, but I needed to keep some of his stuff. For example, at that point I didn't have any lawn and garden tools. After all, I was living in an apartment in Manhattan. I kept all of the tools, and then I hired a guy to cut the grass.
This worked great until the middle of the summer. The guy cutting my grass left me a note. He had found a full-time job, so he didn't need to cut my grass anymore. Because I was in a bind I tried something radical. I decided to cut my own lawn. I pulled out dad's lawnmower fully expecting that I would need to go to Home Depot to buy a new machine. The stupid machine started.
Well, it finally happened. The machine has failed. I tried to fix it, but it appears that my father had "modified" the poor thing so that the replacement part I bought wouldn't work. What had he done? He had fixed a wheel by adding a bolt. The bolt was too long, so he shorted the cutting blade using a grinder. When I installed the new blade it made a lot of very loud, angry noises.
I put the mower at the end of the driveway to be picked up by the trash collection company. As you can expect, someone took it within hours. I have no doubt they are now grinding a blade to fit.
