Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details.Why it’s always important to climb back on the mower by J. G. Fabiano Most of us remember the big events in our lives. These usually have to do with important dates like weddings, birthdays and holidays but, lying on my back in front of my rider lawnmower recently, I realized I had just experienced a big event in my life that I would never forget. It had started out, as these things do, with the best of intentions. The rain-heat-rain cycle of our summer had not let up all through early fall. Not that I was complaining, I am very well aware that winter is just around the corner but all this sunshine and rain meant the lawn kept growing. Like everybody else, I was out there mowing as we headed into the home stretch for Halloween. I also wanted to get my chores done early because there was a Red Sox game on later and I had visions of a Red Sox win and a couple of beers with friends. This vision of baseball and beer must have blinded me to my progress across the lawn because about then my ride-on mower hit the water valve, hidden in the long grass and came to a complete halt but, I did not. I once again proved Newton’s Laws of Motion by flying out of my seat and performing a perfect somersault over the handlebars and landing on my back in front of the mower. Until this moment I never believed the safety stop on a ride-on mower was really necessary but now I was glad the manufacturers had taken people like me into consideration when they built their mower. The most embarrassing part of this experience was that the entire neighborhood was out doing Saturday morning chores when I did my somersault and everybody stopped to see if I had finally succeeded in killing myself. I quickly got up, waved reassuringly to my neighbors to show that I was okay and walked briskly into my garage. Hidden safely in the shadows, where nobody could see me, I leaned against the car and let out a long low moan of pain because everything down to my teeth was hurting. Then, as I wiped the tears from my eyes, I remembered a long train of embarrassing moments in flashback. The earliest I could remember was my first day of kindergarten. Most of us can’t remember this far back but an embarrassing moment has a tendency to become permanently implanted in one’s mind. As my mother escorted me into the classroom along with all the other kids the kindergarten teacher told us to sit in a circle on the floor like Indians around a campfire. Since my legs would never fold quite as neatly as other kids, or Indians, I just plopped my butt down on the floor with my legs crunched underneath so that they immediately started to lose all feeling. The teacher sat in the middle of the circle and proceeded to tell us about all the fun we would have throughout the year. She was quite convincing and I thought I might actually enjoy this new phase of my life. Then, because my mother had given me a lot of milk to drink before going to school, I realized it was time for me to get rid of some liquid. However, I didn’t want to be the first in my new class to have to go to the bathroom. I also knew I was a little person and I was wearing a nice new pair of pants and underpants my mother had bought for my first day of school. They felt nice and thick and I thought that if I released just enough liquid to take off the pressure nobody would notice. Unfortunately, I discovered that once the dam had broken there was no way to stop it but, I thought all would be fine because I was wearing a thick new pair of woollen pants and, from past experience, I knew that wool could soak up a lot of liquid. It did, for a while. Then, my new classmates got real fidgety as they realized they had all become little islands in an ever-expanding lake that seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere. Not wanting to be swamped, the kindergarten teacher jumped up and asked who had peed all over the floor. My mind instantly went into high gear. After all, everybody was sitting in the lake now; who was to say it was me? I immediately turned to the little girl sitting next to me and gave her an inquiring look. Because I didn’t want to appear hostile I made sure it was a pleasantly inquiring look. The little girl reacted by pulling away as fast as she could. It was then that I had my first geometry lesson as all the kids scrambled away in panic, leaving me as the undeniable axis at the center of a liquid circle. For the rest of the year, whenever we sat on the floor, nobody would sit next to me and I was always the axis of a wide circle of floor space. An indelibly embarrassing moment occurred when I was about 10 and playing basketball with a few neighborhood kids. I liked sports even though I was a bit overweight. My mother called it ‘husky’ and to this day I hate the word husky. I was unlucky enough to be picked by the team that decided to go shirtless. I didn’t mind until I stripped off my shirt and became the center of attention when one kid pointed at me and exclaimed: "He has boobs!" Everybody laughed and, of course, I laughed along with them, although what I really wanted to do was go home, crawl under my bed and never come out again. Another embarrassing moment happened when I was in my early teens. I had grown taller and stronger, loved sports and wanted to play as much as I could. I joined an organized basketball league that consisted of kids from all the neighborhoods in Northport, New York and I became a bit of a star because I was strong and wide, which made it very easy for me to get rebounds. One Saturday afternoon we played a team of tough city kids who didn’t care that I was the star of the team. I was strong and afraid of no one. At least I thought I was! Close to the end of the first half I proved my worth by knocking everyone away from the ball and snatching most of the rebounds. One of the city kids did not like this and decided to smack me in the mouth to slow me down. He not only slowed me down he brought tears to my eyes and that was the worst thing that could have happened. Because, as it has been said about every other sport, there’s no crying in basketball. The kid who smacked me was thrown out of the game but it didn’t matter, I had to finish the game knowing I would be forever labeled ‘a wimp’. Painful as they are though, those embarrassing moments are part of growing up. You see, learning the basic rule that one should not take chances unless one knows the worse case scenario to appreciating one’s own body no matter what shape it is in, to understanding there is always someone around who is stronger and tougher no matter how tough you think you are has a tendency to stay forever in one’s mind. If you survive them at all you survive them best with a smile. It took a few minutes to pull myself together after my spill from the tractor but, when I had wiped the tears from my eyes and felt all my teeth to make sure there were none loose ,I realized there was no permanent damage, except to my pride. So, I went back out into the bright sunlight, climbed back on the tractor and started her up again. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over a lifetime it is that no matter how old you are and no matter how much it hurts when you’re thrown, you always climb back on the lawnmower. The End.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
