Yes, April Can Be Cruel: The Danger in Raking

   “That dead, dried grass,” my dad would say intently. “We’ve to get the old stuff out and give the new a chance.” He was no lawn care fanatic, but appearances (at least in regard to the front lawn) were critically important to him for reasons I still can’t fathom.

   Now, all grown up and a father myself, I lean on a rake on my own lawn (a worn expense of anything that gamely volunteers to come up) and gaze out across the valley of corn stubble and marsh in front our house. An April wind slices through my sweatshirt, and I allow myself a few minutes to reminisce some more, back to a similar morning when I was only 12.

   Twelve seemed to be a watershed age in our house. At 12 you stepped from the brink of kidhood into the shadow of the valley of adulthood. You could no longer cower under the covers if there was a bat in the house at night, but had to grab your own badminton racket and join the fray. Sleeping late on Saturdays was no longer allowed. There were now “chores,” and you weren’t just “helping Dad,” you were out there in the elements by yourself, shoveling snow, mowing the lawn, turning over the garden, raking.

   Spring raking was one of those chores I was always going to do next weekend, but on this particular Saturday morning I was trapped. I had slept in past nine, enough of an excuse to make my mother pour on the guilt.

   “You can do a few things around here, you know.” My mom’s inevitable understatement. Didn’t she realize I was doing just about everything a 12 year old boy could do? Who was going to watch Mighty Mouse save Krakatoa Katie over a bowl of soggy Frosted Flakes? Who was going to crawl back under covers and finish reading Booth Tarkington’s Penrod and Sam or go down to the river and throw rocks at carp?

   “And drink your milk, all of it.” My mom said, noticing my forlorn face. “It’ll help you in the long run.”

   That was hard to swallow. Evidently this “long run” loomed somewhere far ahead in my future. Could this single, rheumy glass of milk really make any kind of difference? I had a vision of my friends’ cleats in my face as I pitched headlong into the cinder track of the long run. They all drank their milk.

   After a suitable, leisurely hour of preparation, I went out into the cold April wind to face the front yard. Rake the dead grass in the spring, cut the live grass all summer long, rake the elm leaves off the grass in the fall, and pile the snow on the grass in the winter. The grass and I were tired.

   No matter how much of the full candle power of my 12-year-old ingenuity I brought to bear, there apparently was only one way to get that damn grass. With a stupid rake. This was an implement Neanderthals probably left leaning in a corner of some French cave. I begn to rake with a vengeance as I fantasized huge, jet engine-powered lawn vacuums, or gleaming metal robot lawn workers, outfitted with rocket packs and gattling guns. Anything would make raking more interesting.

   I wasn’t getting much dead grass that day because as soon as I had a wispy little pile it would start to blow away. What I did get I would put in our old red wagon and haul to the back yard to be burned later. My family actually believed in torturing the grass.

   As I toiled away I wondered, was this really necessary? Or was this just some task my parents had dreamed up to teach me the value of honest labor and responsibility? Possibly they were just aiming for one Saturday I wouldn’t be looking for trouble with my buddies down by the river, where I’m sure my dad figured it was only a matter of time before I fell in and drowned myself. Were they afraid I wouldn’t be ready when it was time to strike out on my own? As far as I was concerned, at the crusty age of 12 I knew pretty much all I needed to know, except for maybe how to drive a stick shift.

   When I finally got a wagon’s worth I started to consider taking my first break. My fingers were pink, my nose was running. It seemed justifiable. I started to pack the grass down on the pile in the wagon when suddenly it happened: the rake broke.

    Now, this could have been great, since we only owned one rake, and I could have rejoined Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, and Pepe Le Pew free of parental reproach; however, when the rake handle broke, the force of my push made my body pivot sharply. This would have been okay, too; however, my left foot, planted firm on the frozen turf, did not pivot. My foot stayed exactly where it was, leaving my knee to wrench with a sickening crunch I heard as much as felt.

   In a second I was on the ground, dying, I thought. The pain was incredible, practically paralyzing my leg, and my brain was caught in a tornado of swirling thoughts: “EIGHTEEN MONTHS IN A CAST!”, “STANDING ON THE SIDELINES ON CRUTCHES!”, and, in Doctor Johnson’s solemn voice, “He’ll always have a limp.”

   But after 20 minutes of solid agony and not a little self-pity, I realized I couldn’t just lie there. Cars were driving by, some possibly containing girls, I looked ridiculous. So, with Spartan courage, I grabbed what was left of the rake handle, and, driving it into the unyielding ground, I started to drag my crippled body toward the house. The scene was heartbreaking, but I soldiered on, the runny nose and tears results of grim determination, not crying.

   Luckily, I had left the door to our screen porch on the back of our house open. I groped up the two stairs and then rested. The pain was still terrible, and for some stupid reason I kept thinking I would never walk again. Destined, I thought, to go through life pulling myself along with a broken rake handle. I tried to call my parents. “Help” at the top my voice seemed appropriate for the situation. It was crazy. By pushing myself up, I could just see my parents through the living room windows, my dad consumed in his daily mound of newspapers, my mom ironing pants I would probably never need again while she listened to the TV blaring The Wide World of Sports. I feebly tossed the rake handle at the windows and missed. Now, without my trusty stick I was helpless, so I started to squirm infantry-style to our kitchen door on my own.

   We had a funny kitchen door. Through some architectural miscalculation, probably on my dad’s part, the porch addition left the kitchen door’s threshold raised about 14 inches from the porch floor. If you ever find yourself with a broken leg at a funny inner door like this, you’ll have to do what I did to be heard. Raising myself up on two hands, I began to beat my forehead against the door. One caution: this cannot be done very long.

   I’m positive a conversation then went on in the living room, something like this:

 Mom: “Is that someone knocking at the kitchen door?”

 Dad: “Who would knock at the kitchen door? ”

Mom: “I don’t know. It sounds to me like someone’s knocking.”

Dad: “No one knocks at the kitchen door, they’d knock at the back door.”

Mom: “It stopped. No, there it is again. Somebody’s knocking. Can you answer the door, Dick?”

Dad: “Where’s Ron?”

Mom: “He’s supposed to be raking the front yard.”

Dad: “I thought he was going to do that last weekend…”

etc., etc.

   For some strange reason, my Mom finally put down her iron and came to investigate. I had just discovered that banging your head against something hard does make you forget any pain coming from somewhere else.

   “What did you do?” my mom asked.

   “IT HURTS!” I cried. I admit wasn’t very articulate at that age.

   “What hurts?” My dad had now joined the scene.

   “MY LEG!”

   “Your leg?” Though either were my parents.

   “MY LEG!” Were we speaking the same language?

   “What were you doing?” What was I doing? What did it matter what I was doing?

   “THE RAKE BROKE!” Okay, that was a mistake, because I knew then the broken rake would immediately become the main issue.

   “You broke the rake?”
   “I FELL DOWN!”

   Finally satisfied, my parents retreated for a consultation. “I’m worried—Should we call Dr. Johnson?—Do you think he broke it?—the rake?”

   I was by then lying half in the house and half out, but actually I was feeling a little better. I knew somehow I would soon be back in the safety of my family. I could relax, Mom and Dad would take it from here. Dr. Johnson would make a house call. I might even be lying on the couch, watching Looney Tunes again shortly. There might even by a new copy of Mad Magazine in it for me.

   Back in the present, my son rouses me from my reverie by scratching away at the sparse grass in front of me with a little tin rake. He pulls intently at the grass for a few moments, then pauses. “Why are we raking now, Dad, there aren’t even any leaves.”

   I look back across the valley and think of my mom and dad. “The dead grass, we’ve got to give the new stuff a chance…but, be careful.”

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Pushing the Envelope

To Ride Or Not To Ride, That Was The Question…

By Ron Davis

   I was torn. I had a four day weekend and an offer from my son to guide me to some of his favorite early season trout streams. He lives in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on the Mississippi; I live on the other side of the state. I could take the pickup and really load up on gear, even throwing in a care package for him, OR take my F650 which would mean barest essentials, great mileage, and well, you know, more fun. So what was the problem? It was Wisconsin. It was March 18. The weather man looked uneasy. The steel gray sky looked like snow.

   I hemmed. I hawed. I piled my gear in the garage. I decided, well, why not load up the bike, just to see if it’s even feasible? Two travel rod tubes, waders and boots, fishing vest, net, rain gear, one change of clothes, camera, three granola bars, a second-hand copy of Gierach’s Trout Bum, toothbrush and deodorant, plastic. Packing looked do-able. I looked at the sky again, old oatmeal gray. The dash-mounted Formotion thermometer was nudging 35 degrees Fahrenheit. It was 1 p.m., not going to get any warmer. I could call and see what my wife thought, but there certainly was no mystery there. Better to call her after I arrived. I threw on the tail bag and opened the Givi’s. I was committed.

   How many times have you started a trip thinking, “Is this really wise?” And “What exactly am I trying to prove?”  It was one of those. I shifted up tentatively. I rolled on the throttle, countering, “What’s the worst that could happen?” I suppressed the persistent image of me and a shiny red motorcycle sliding off a banked turn into some snowy pines.

   I had, after all, done stuff like this before. When I was in college, tired of being wheel-less all winter, I had hitched home to get my Honda 350 out of dry dock one March. I had to set out on the 100 miles back to school by six the next morning to make my 10 o’clock news writing class with Dr. Polk. Everything was covered with a heavy frost. My mother looked doubtful, my dad appeared smug, as if convinced his initial suspicion about me had finally been confirmed: I was, indeed, an idiot.

   Either I was dumber then, or the gear wasn’t as good, because, despite duct tape around my face shield, a winter parka, and sorel boots, I began shivering almost as soon as I got on the highway. I started pulling over every 20 miles or so to pry myself out of the saddle and beat my arms together. Windshields were for sissies then, fairing didn’t even exist. I’m sure I considered hitting the coffee shops or even turning around, but Dr. Polk was legendary for accepting no excuses short of hospitalization, not to mention holding students who cut class up for public ridicule. By the time I coasted stiffly into my apartment’s parking lot, I was shaking violently, but at the same time feeling strangely peaceful, detached, and more than a little confused. (“Hypothermia” hadn’t entered my vocabulary yet.) I stopped, put my feet down and just stood there, straddling the bike as it continued to run, trying to remember complicated things like how one would go about turning off a motorcycle, or how, having turned it off, one would get off the bike without having it fall over on top of oneself. I looked down with wonder to see the inside calves of my rain pants melted to my jeans, the result of hugging my legs in so tightly to the headers.

   As if trying to move through heavy syrup, I remembered the function of the sidestand, silenced the engine by stabbing at the kill switch, and began fumbling for my apartment key. Making a trail of clothing to bathroom, I turned the shower to hot and curled up on the floor of the stall. A half-hour later I was still shaking, but could sort of remember who I was and why I wasn’t going to get an “A” in News Editing 255 anymore.

   But now, something like 300 years later, things seemed positively luxurious compared to that jaunt on the Honda. I was snug in layers of fleece, gore-tex, and Kevlar, and heated grips and grip guards kept the feeling in my fingers. A 17 inch windshield lifted the wind chill up to the crest of my helmet. Had I gotten softer or smarter?

   But there were still those clouds, those clouds. Wispy threads of what I knew were snow squalls were feeling their way down, lower and lower. At the 70 mile mark I felt I had earned a piece of homemade pie and a couple cups of black coffee at Connie’s Country Café in Babcock. I was the only one in the little place, which was fine since my pants, coat, helmet, backpack, gloves and other gear took up two tables. I’d recommend the apple ala mode (they warm it up for you without asking).

   Suited up and outside again, I pressed the starter and simultaneously flurries appeared. “Flurries I can deal with,” I said into my helmet, as I settled in for the 60 mile dead straightaway down 173. I screwed down the Throttlemeister at 62 and settled back. Straightaways like this one foster a certain Zen-like state for me. You’re trapped with your own thoughts, forced to get reacquainted with someone you may have been neglecting for a while. Among other revelations, it occurred to me what a change in roles this weekend presented. My son would be the host, feeding me, shepherding me around, saying things like, “Fish here” and “Do you need to take a nap?” Basically, he would be more like the parent, and I the wayward kid, showing up on his improbable motorcycle.

   At Sparta (a fitting coincidence) things got a bit more, well, spartan.  Big, fifty-cent sized flakes came down in a sheet. My windshield and arms turned white, but I was able to keep my face shield clear as I eased down to 35. At least the flakes were still melting as soon as they hit the road. I soon started getting the “What was he thinking?” look from oncoming drivers. That was a pretty good question, I thought, but then a convoy of Humvees out of Fort McCoy rumbled by, and I had the feeling some of those guys would have gladly traded places.

   What was I thinking? Was this some kind of challenge, some kind of meaningless mid-life charade to stave off early bird specials and senior citizen discounts? Was pushing this envelope going to prove I was as tough and daring as any kid half my age? Maybe I was just desperate for a good ride on a motorcycle. I plodded along to the first convenience store and daintily steered in to re-evaluate. I looked miserable, but realized I felt pretty okay. I munched a Butterfinger, ignored the smirks from other customers, and waited for the squall to pass.

   I must have passed through three or four more snowy sections in the final thirty miles of my trek, but having chosen back roads, I could take it easy or pull over whenever I needed to, and even in these less than ideal conditions I still could enjoy carving into Wisconsin’s “coulee country.” I pulled into my son’s driveway feeling tired and happy. I turned off the engine, swung the sidestand down and leaned back on the tailbag to savor a moment that I think only a rider knows. The old man still has it, I thought. Just then my son pulled in next to me, home from work. He gave me a blank look of resignation and shook his head. Dad would never grow up.

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