The Okie in Isolation: Mowing the Edge

By Bobby Neal Winters
You will all understand the rest of this if you know that our children are terrified that Jean and I will get COVID 19.  They are isolating us from themselves and our grandchildren who are filthy little vectors. They’ve gone as far as parking one of their cars in our driveway and not moving it to let us out.  They run errands for us and bring us stuff so that we won’t get exposed.
This may be the best thing that has ever happened to Jean and me.

Saturday I decided that it was time to buy a battery-powered lawn mower. (I will tell about this at greater length in my weekly column in the Morning Sun.) This week has been wet and most of my grass--as there is such variety within my lawn--is not ready to mow yet.  But along the edge with the neighbor it is quite a bit taller as he does take a lot better care of his lawn.
I decided that I would mow the edge and I used the opportunity to show the new mower off to my better half.  The rest, as they say, is history.
While I was mowing, Jean got a look at a pile of old fence posts and chain link fence wire that I have been mowing around (had been mowing around) for about 20 years. 
Jean has been cleaning up the yard over the course of the Great Isolation and is throwing away some stuff.  She saw my pile, and said, “Let’s put that in my metal pile.”
Over the years we’ve noted that if we leave metal on the parquet that it doesn’t sit there long.  It will soon be picked up by enterprising young men who will sell it at scrap.
I said, “Sure.”
It has been 20 years.  There were small trees that had grown up through the wire.  It took two hours with various implements of destruction to get this out.
Moral: Don’t let your wife watch you mow!