Is 'Lawn Rage' next?

	James Hilston, Post-Gazette Click illustration for larger image.

A hardy few of us throwbacks still have a manual mower, which I try to use as infrequently as possible. But now even some power mower owners are being left in the dust (and noise!) of the escalating horsepower race. The 3.5 horsepower version, the standard 10 years ago, may be heading toward extinction. The future seems to be with bigger gas guzzlers, up to 7.5 horsepower, mimicking the trend that brought us outrageously overpowered SUVs. "There's definitely a horsepower war going on," Peter Sawchuk, lawn expert for Consumer Reports told The Christian Science Monitor. As for those ride-on mowers, they use to come with 12 horsepower. Now the horse count is up to 20 and 22, which, if I'm not mistaken, is more powerful than a Fiat. The downside: As cars, trucks and buses have become cleaner, lawn mowers have become a larger fraction of the pollution problem. The lawn mower industry says it's not enough to worry about. But California is said to be pushing for lawn mower emission standards by 2007. State inspections can't be far behind.

Increase your mower size

Meredith Small, an anthropology professor at Cornell, told The Monitor that at some level men might think they can attract women with brawny lawn gear. She speaks from experience. She surrendered her push mower when she fell for a power-mower owner. Can we now expect spam promising to cure lawn mower dysfunction or improve the size of your mower?

On the other hand

The weed-free bolt of green is irresistible, if not an obsession, to most Americans. But not author Michael Pollin:

"Gardening, as compared to lawn care, tutors us in nature's ways, fostering an ethic of give and take with respect to the land. Gardens instruct us in the particularities of place. They lessen our dependence on distant sources of energy, technology, food, and, for that matter, interest. For if lawn mowing feels like copying the same sentence over and over, gardening is like writing out new ones, an infinitely variable process of invention and discovery. Gardens also teach the necessary if rather un-American lesson that nature and culture can be compromised, that there might be some middle ground between the lawn and the forest -- between those who would complete the conquest of the planet in the name of progress and those who believe it's time we abdicated our rule and left the earth in the care of its more innocent species. The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway."

-- From "Why Mow? The Case Against Lawns"

Don't mow your head

The American Dialect Society named this as one of the best coinages of 2004: Lawn mullet, n., a yard neatly mowed in front but unmowed in the back.

Mullet over

Of course, the mullet referred to is not the fish but the hairstyle that dates back to the '70s -- long before the invention of the metrosexual -- and is alive and well in Pittsburgh. Characteristics: short hair on the top and sides of the head, followed by a long drape of hair on the back reaching well down the spine. But it doesn't stop there. It's a whole lifestyle. "It is suggested by many top laboratories that the mullet, as it slowly reaches maturity, begins to grow tentacles in the brain," says RateMyMullet.com, where you can find out how your mullet stacks up with the best.

An Achilles head

Did I say the mullet dates back to the '70s? I could be off by a mere 2,800 years. Perhaps the earliest reference was uncovered by a scholarly contributor to mulletsgalore.com, where you are invited to join the "mullitia." The reference is from Homer's "The Iliad," written presumably around the 8th century B.C. about the Trojan War, which is supposed to have taken place around 1200 B.C.:

The sprinting Abantes followed hard at his heels,
their forelocks cropped, hair grown long at the back,
troops nerved to lunge with their tough ashen spears
and slash the enemies' breastplates round their chests.

Aging limerick

As previously stated, this is National Limerick Day. Reader Helen Choyke answered the call. "This one is as old as the hills but shouldn't pass into obscurity."

There was an old man from Tarentum
Who sat on his false teeth and bent 'em.
When asked what the cost
To recover his loss,
He said, "I don't know 'cause I rent 'em."