1974:


It smells like Sunday. Cut grass, two-stroke, freshly baked scones. Though today is no ordinary Sunday. I've been waiting for this particular Sunday for the whole of my short life.

The Victa starts first pull of the cord, like always. Dad has it running like clockwork. Quietest mower in the street. You'd swear it ran on honey instead of two-stroke, the way it purrs, never missing a beat. "No good having the best if you don't look after it", dad always says, holding the spark plug up to his eye for inspection. He's watching me mow as he clips away at the privet hedge, proud as punch, you can tell. All those Sundays I watched him from the safety of the shed, ducking out when he dropped the revs on the Victa, running the catcher over to the compost heap, always dreaming of this day.

Jen from across the road is sitting on her front step, pretending to read, but I know she's really watching me do the nature strip. I'm putting on a good show, pushing the old Victa with confidence, leaving long, straight stripes of green, careful not to catch the blades on the gutters or footpath at the end of each pass. When the job is complete the nature strip looks like the MCG on the opening day of a test match. I haven't felt this happy since the first time I put the bins out. This is what it feels like to be a man.

When I've finished I tilt the mower on its side, and with an old kitchen knife I scrape away all the built up grass from around the blades. You've got to look after the blades. A mower's only ever as good as its blades That's what dad says.

1982:


I can't believe the condition of the mower. It doesn't look any different to when I used it as a kid, not so much as a grass stain on the little plastic hub caps. It's like his car. You don't see too many '72 Kingswoods in that sort of condition. He's only just this year taken the plastic off the inside of the doors, thank Christ. It's embarrassing enough turning up at the Drive-In with the venetian blinds in the rear window and the crochet cushions on the parcel shelf. Still, Jen and I like the bench seat and, bad taste aside, it out-drives the clapped-out assortment of Toranas and Cortinas my friends own. Dad tunes the Kingswood once a month like a classical musician would tune his violin, and the engine sings.

I get to use the car Saturday nights on the condition that I mow the lawn. So here I am, another sweltering Saturday arvo pushing the Victa over grass that is already too short to cut. I can do the whole lot, front and back, without emptying the catcher. In our street it is not so much mowing, as being seen to be mowing. If there wasn't the sound of a mower somewhere in our neighbourhood on a weekend you'd think the world was about to end.

Jen has turned Saturdays into a bit of a game. She's out on the front lawn washing her mum's Corolla that hasn't been out of the garage since last Saturday. She's wearing a pair of tight denim shorts and a bikini top, and as she stretches to clean the bonnet she rubs her tits up and down the duco so that they're covered in the soapy water. When she bends to scrub the bumper and I see the water trickling down her thighs, I swear I have to push my groin hard against the mower handle to save embarrassment. It's like a kind of foreplay for the Drive-In on Saturday nights. Jesus, if dad knew what we did on his precious bench seat each week he'd have the Kingswood exorcised.

Later, as I pretend to scrape the blades free of cut grass, for dad's benefit, my short, uneventful life flashes before my eyes. I make a pact with myself, there and then. From the day I move out of home I will never mow another lawn.

1985:


"What do you mean you've taken $300 out of the savings account to buy a lawnmower? We live in a one-bedroom flat, we don't even have a pot plant for God's sake. Anyway, I thought we'd agreed that was our deposit money."

"Think about it Jen, I can earn $8 an hour mowing lawns, and daylight saving starts this week. If I'm out of the bank by, say, five, I can mow until nine. That's over thirty bucks a night. I'll have the mower paid off in a fortnight, and by the end of summer we'll be half way to our deposit. It's perfect."

"But when will we see each other?"

"We'll still have the weekends. We can go out looking at blocks of land. Just one summer Jen, just until we get on our feet."

1987:

It's a muggy night and the sweat is making the shirt cling to my back. Normally I'd take it off, but old Mrs Grange is funny about things like that. She worries what the neighbours would think about a semi-naked man in her front garden. I wish I'd cleaned the air filter on the Victa, it's chugging along like a neglected Kombi, coughing and spluttering. Or is that me?

God I'm hungry. I didn't get time to have a proper lunch at work today because of the interview with the manager about the loan extension. It'll have to wait now until I've done Mrs Lloyd's or I'll be mowing in the dark. I'll grab a pizza on the way over to the block. Well, I guess I can call it the house now. I hope the electricians have finished so I can set up a flood-light and finish off the paving outside the garage. Jen's staying at her mum's so I can work late. They went shopping for baby clothes today. God, I hate to think how much money she's spent. It's going to be the best dressed baby in all of Meadow Vale Estate if she has her way.

At least the mowing's helping to make ends meet. When I get some spare time I've really got to service the Victa. Dad would be disgusted if he could see the state of the blades.
1988:

The front yard is tinged with green this morning. It's amazing what a good soaking of rain can do. The lawn seed has really taken, a nice mix of Kentucky blue-grass and fine fescue with some perennial rye thrown in for a quick carpet of green. I can tell Brian from across the road is impressed. He's been trying to turn his patchy old front yard into a lawn since early spring. It's all in the preparation though. This'll be ready for a mow in another ten weeks. By autumn little Tyson will be falling over on it, and a nice soft landing it'll be too.
1993:

I'm staring at the ceiling listening to Jen snore, wishing to hell that I could sleep. All I can think about is tomorrow's meeting with the bank's management consultant. What sort of a package they'll offer me. It's been on the cards for a while now but I haven't had the heart to tell Jen. I didn't want to worry her, with the baby due and Tiffany starting pre-school and everything.

To take my mind off it, help me sleep, I try to calculate how many kilometres I've pushed the Victa in the past eight years. I work out that I must average about ten k's a week for roughly eight months of the year. That's 320 kilometres a year. Melbourne to Wangaratta. Or over two and a half thousand k's in the last eight years. That's Melbourne to Cooktown as the crow flies. Christ, I've pushed the Victa all the way to the tropics. When I start to calculate how many times I would have emptied the catcher, and how many new spark plugs I would have used it all becomes too much.

I fall asleep just north of Albury.

1998:

This morning I ask Tyson if he'd like to have a go at mowing the lawns all by himself. He looks at me as if I've suggested he go out and tongue-kiss the dog. Sundays aren't what they used to be. Tyson goes to drama classes in the morning, soccer in the afternoon. Tiffany and Amanda have their jazz ballet from ten until midday. Jen's working Sunday afternoons at the supermarket so that she has an extra day off during the week. I spend the day dropping off and picking up. While Tyson plays soccer I rush home and mow the lawns. It's a far cry from those Sunday afternoons I remember as a kid. There is still the sweet smell of freshly cut grass, but there's no cup of tea waiting when I finish. Forget the scones.

The Victa has finally given up the ghost. One of the blades has come loose and taken half the mower with it. I've just bought a Honda four-stroke, the Rolls Royce of mowers. Hums like a swarm of happy bees. Starts like a dream. The day I picked it up I came home via dad's place. Thought it would make his day to see a four-stroke with an electric starter. He just shook his head and said, "It's no Victa, son." He still drives the '72 Kingwood.

2023:


When I was a young fella, working for the bank, I always said I'd retire by 55. I pictured Jen and I with our four wheel drive and caravan, taking off up north for the winter. Byron Bay, Fraser Island, sun tans and seniors cards. But there's no such thing as compulsory super when you run your own mowing business. I never had a business plan or balance sheets, just three kids to feed and a mortgage.

We finally paid it off last month too. Thirty five years. Tyson's entire lifetime. What a celebration that was, burning the mortgage papers, knowing that every beautiful blade of grass was ours and no bank could ever take it away from us.

I'll have to work for as long as my body will let me. I'm pretty fit for a 59-year-old, it's just the knees and ankles that are causing me a bit of strife. It's the mileage. Tyson and Beth and the kids were over for Sunday lunch last week and we worked out just how far I'd pushed the mower since 1983. Almost 16,000 kilometres. That's from here to Cairo, or Mexico City, or the Arctic Circle for Christ's sake. That's a lot of mowing in anyone's language.

It's getting tougher all the time to pick up work. All the franchises have moved in and taken over the suburbs. "Blade Runners", "Lawns Are Us", "Moe's", you just can't compete with the big guns.

2043:

I never really believed I'd live long enough to end up in a place like this. Always thought I'd just keel over one day, dragged along behind the self-propelled mower until it ran out of fuel or hit a tree or something. Then they could have just tucked me into a nice warm compost heap with all the lawn clippings and let the worms do their thing.

Sounds quite nice when I think about it. Still, can't complain. The old legs might be shot but I can still see and smell and have a decent conversation with the grandkids.

I like sitting here on the verandah on Sunday mornings when they mow the lawns. I was thinking this morning how despite all the technological advances of the 21st century, mowers haven't really changed that much. Sure, they run on natural gas and solar-charged batteries now, and you've got your self-sharpening blades of course, but some poor bastard still has to push it around like I did for 50 odd years.

I've been watching the young fella from "Bills Mowing." He's dressed more like an army reserve than a gardener. I wonder what he thinks about while he pushes his mower, day after day. It gives you a lot of thinking time, mowing does. If I could download the last 50 years of my mowing thoughts I reckon there'd be a novel or two in there, perhaps the odd book of philosophy. I bet if you asked this young fella now if he'll be mowing lawns when he's 50 he'd say, "No way in the world." But it's funny how things turn out.

One thing for sure, he's not thinking about the job at hand. He's got the blades set way too low for this time of year. It's obvious he doesn't care about his lawns. Just cut'em and move on.

Bill's was the first of the mowing franchises that made it hard for us independents back in the 90's. Started out with a few blokes mowing lawns, died a millionaire. It just shows you though, he might have been a bloody brilliant businessman, but his blokes still can't mow a lawn to save themselves.

The cut grass smells good though. That's one thing that'll never change. Oh, and scones are on this morning, like the Sundays of old.

2049:


We've been having this running argument about Grandad's ashes ever since the funeral a fortnight ago. The Will said 'scatter to the four-winds', whatever that means. He really should have been more specific. Dad wants to toss them off the end of the Willy Pier. Aunty Tiff's got these grand plans about climbing a mountain or going to the top of the tallest building. But I really think my idea's much more appropriate. I've got the ground all prepared, ready to sow. Two parts Kentucky blue-grass, one part perennial rye, one part fine fescue, and one part Grandad.

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