Dam It!

Freshly cut grass. I hadn’t thought about it in years.

Just last week—as I mowed my lawn—a memory popped into my mind. A memory from decades ago. A memory of simple times. Simple childhood, carefree days. Then, as I reveled in the memory, my mind did what it does—wandered to an unrelated, yet still related topic—and I was soon chucking to myself.

Somewhere in this catalog of stories, I shared the tale of my first bicycle. It was at this home, the one where lighting killed our tree and not us, where one of my favorite childhood memories was formed. Fresh cut grass: Dam.

Now, you may be wondering what a dam and fresh-cut grass have to do with each other. Well, as a ’70s-born child that got to enjoy the youth of the ‘80s, technology was at a completely level than it is now. Technology, down to the most mundane of many things like a lawn mower. Yes, you read that correctly, a lawn mower. Every kid in my neighborhood loved what the lawn mower did: It cut the grass.

I know. I may still be not making much sense. Please bear with me. If you are a regular subscriber (thank you), hopefully, you feel like the wait is always worth it. If you are new to my blog (welcome), you only have my word that the wait is worth it. And, it is (probably). I know what I wrote.

The trails…

On any given summer day the neighborhood children would stop whatever we were doing if somebody’s dad was cutting the grass. We stopped because we knew there would be access to the trails. See, forty years ago a riding lawnmower was not a common household machine. Neither was a lawn mower bag attachment. Most everybody had the same push mower. Red base, pull-cord start, no power-driven wheels, and all the grass came out in one steady stream off to one side of the machine. That last part was kinda cool because you knew exactly where you had last been, and then could line up your next pass on the cut and just overlap the stream of cut grass and get a bigger, thicker stream of cut grass. As stupid as that reads, it was something we all looked forward to.

We looked forward to it because we used the new grass for all kinds of childish-stupid (I know what I wrote). The second most popular build for me and my friends was the grass igloo. We would grab handfuls of freshly mowed blades, compact them into a circular wall, and then build up to a dome shape. G.I. Joe, or Star Wars figures could hide out in these and then, when they were inevitably blown up… Shrapnel! Real destruction debris. We would fling the ceiling and wall sections all over while we made explosion sounds. The plot points we used as to why the walls and structures were destroyed were weak and terrible. Not even fit for the worst B-Movies ever written. We didn’t care. It was all about the explosion. It’s one of the things we lived for.

The older boys would take the opportunity to pack the stuff into a compact sphere and hurl them at us younger children. Yup… Summertime ‘snowballs’.  And, if you were lucky (sarcasm), to ensure there was proper weight behind the grassball for distance, you would get a second impact of the rock core all the grass was packed around. Yeah, lucky.

What can I say, the ‘80s were a different time. But, we survived. And, are all the better for it. At least, that’s what the therapist says.

My favorite build was the dam.

Because built-in sprinkler systems were also not very common where I lived forty years ago, if someone was watering their lawn, it was done by a single sprinkler attached to a hose. Inevitably that meant the sprinkler had to get near the property line and water would run off, into the street and down the gutter for all the downstreamers to share.

Gutter water. That always ended any game we were playing because now there was a river for G.I. Joe and Star Wars guys to drown in, or boat in, or scuba in, or drown in (I know what I wrote). But, if there was gutter water and freshly mowed lawn… O-oh boy! The perfect trifecta! (I know what I wrote)

“[insert name here]’s dad is mowing their lawn!”

“And there’s gutter water!”

“DAM!”

We loved it. Our efforts would go full tilt to create a structure strong enough to divert the water and still remain playable. When done right, we could get a deep pool of water so He-Man or Skeletor might drown in it. The significance of this is that the classic He-Man action figures were larger than the G.I. Joe’s and Star Wars figs. Keep up, people.

One downfall was time. We never knew how long the water would be at our disposal, and we only had until the dad who had mowed his lawn had raked up his clipping (if he raked). We always had to act quickly. The call would go out. Action would be taken. And, as soon as baseline satisfaction was reached we played, then added onto the build if we could—time allowances.

The biggest danger was that none of us were engineers. We were six, seven, and eight years old. We did not fundamentally understand the laws of applied physics. So, if we had good ol’ Joe atop our dam, and Cobra just so happened to set a secret charge, and the dam blew… A secret explosive charge so secret even we didn’t know about it… More than once good ol’ Joe was almost lost forever to the current after the dam gave way and he was carried off at high speeds…

Seriously.

I think this might be where I developed my love of building sand castles at the edge of a beach just to see how long I can defend it from the onslaught of waves and water saturation… But, I digress and use too many ellipses… Regardless…

Those were simple childhood times that I occasionally reflect upon with great joy and satisfaction. Admittedly, I have not done so for a long time. I’m glad I mowed my lawn—dam it.