John Deere and Me!

By Sybil Bayles

            When we built our third house, it was on the lake. We had one hundred foot front, and the back sloped down to the lake where we built a sea wall. With both of us working, my husband indulged in one of his dreams – he bought a huge John Deere mower-tractor for our new one acre lawn! I wouldn’t go near that monster, I just kept using the small mower to do the trimming and let him have the pleasure of riding on the big one.

            Several years later, my husband passed away and I HAD to learn to use the John Deere. The front yard did fine, but the back yard proved to be my undoing. Because it sloped down to the lake, almost every time I started to turn around, at the bottom of the yard, one of the wheels of that J.D. would slip off the sea wall and over into the lake.

            Each time this happened, which was often, that big thing would become just as helpless as an overturned turtle. I would go to the telephone, call one of the deacons from the little church I attended, to please come and get the mower out of the lake.

            It became such a frequent occurrence that the preacher began asking on Wednesday nights, “Who will be available this Saturday when the Widow Bayles mows her yard?”

            Time passed. I retired and moved away from the lake – sold the old J. D. and bought a small Lawn Boy. Two or three years later, the Lawn Boy ran out of steam about the same time I did. My family started in to get me to hire my yard mowed. “Mama, you’re not as young as you used to be.”

            “True,” I replied, “and I’m not as well off as I used to be. Remember me? I’m on Social Security, or, as we delicately put it, ‘on a fixed income’. I can’t afford to have my yard mowed every week.”

            My friend, Mac, was something of a mechanic and fixed my mower any time that I would break it. When he began a mowing service, he offered to do my yard for $25.00 a week.

            “Thanks, but I can’t afford it. I’m on a fixed income.” I decided I would invest in a self-propelled Lawn Boy and then my troubles would be over. I knew all I had to do was just pull gently on the rope and it would start. Then I could guide it with one hand.

            That mower wouldn’t run fast, even when I was helping it along, as I usually did, except for one time ….

            I had broken my foot and as soon as I got my walking cast, I decided my yard HAD TO BE MOWED! I wrapped my cast in a big, black leaf bag, tied it tightly and started that mower. I knew I could keep up because it ran so slowly. I pulled the cord and that mower took off like a scalded dog. Before I knew it I was hopping and mowing, mowing and hopping, trying to keep up. That mower ran faster that day than it ever had before or since.

            I would go around the house, hopping, that black bag waving in the breeze, and on my next round, there would be two or three cars parked at my curb, waiting to see me come around again!

            Laura Sybil Moore Bayles, a native of Virginia, reared in Louisiana, is a retired Banker, widow of the late Buron A. Bayles, mother of two sons, Jerry and Billy, proud grandmother of six and great grandmother of four. She began writing at the age of seven and has published two books, “The Great Depression and Me, or How I Survived the First Eighty Plus Years”, and “Is the Depression Over, I Can’t Tell.” Much of her writings are taken from her real life experiences. While a member of Toastmasters, International, she won several district, area, and regional contests in humorous speaking.