Real-life lawn care Pt. I

It had been a long day. I had to get up at 4 a.m. to go to D.C. for a story, and as I returned to the homestead, tired and cranky, I saw a guy at the sidewalk next to my house throwing clumps of dirt in the air with a shovel.

I decided to see what he was up to.

"I'm trying to get this grass out of the street," he said, as if he was surprised I hadn't caught on immediately. I hadn't really paid it much mind before, but there was some grass growing in the gutter. This guy has one of the nicest cars on the block, and I guess he didn't like driving over it.

"I'll go get you a bag," I said in my best passive-aggressive tone. I came out and started cleaning up after him huffily, but he didn't notice. After he cleaned the area in front and behind his car, he just kept going, the length of my side yard, clearing the unmowable crap grass that had grown over the curb. "You know," I thought, "That looks pretty good."

"Hey, don't worry about the leaves," I called as he was scooping them out of the gutter onto the grass. "Let's leave them for the city to pick up next week." (Nice, huh?)

"You got a rake?" he asked. Why yes, in fact I do.

For the next fifteen minutes or so, he scraped, and I cleared up. I was tired as hell, but goddamn if the sidewalk wasn't looking great.

After we finished I went over and introduced myself. "You haven't met Ron yet?" called out one of my elderly neighbors as he passed by. (It's more or less impossible to do anything in my neighborhood without some unsolicited comments from passers-by.) "He's a pillar of the whole situation."

Indeed he is.