Cross-Cut Lawns, a Creeping Menace

Only when your eyes have been opened to the danger do you start to see it everywhere, as in other cases of existential threats, like the return of bell bottoms or sudden instances of audience participation sprung upon you.

There’s just something about human nature that prefers to live in happy ignorance, directing the eye and the mind to slide right by the very danger that is creeping up on you.

You cannot look anywhere these days – ball parks, public grounds, rolling civic landscapes, and, what is worse, in suburban neighborhoods, where we live, where we live, my friend – without seeing cross-cut lawns.

I do not know what else to call them, striped lawns, patterned lawns? Theses lawns that have a lattice or a woven look to them like the pot holders we used to string as children, as though they have been gone over first one way, smoothing the grass into a comely appearance from that direction, and then from another criss-cross way, so that a single square can be viewed in align with first one horizontal stripe or vertical stripe and then another.

It is a dark age that brings forth such things.

‘Seething outrage’ is one possible reaction,but as it turns out I’ve got the market cornered on that one. You might be interested in ‘growing concern’ or ‘creeping menace’ but like I say I’ve already laid claim to the most extreme reaction.

The world runs by iron laws, let us start with that as our premise.

Gravity, electromagnetism, the relationship between pressure and the temperature of gases, the area of rectangles and triangles, the force of water while flowing, the makeup of the atom.

These phenomena do not randomly occur each time they do occur, but they follow, as I say, iron laws of nature. Unalterable.

If any of these phenomena somehow did not happen as laid out, it can be presumed that the world as we know it would fall apart.

Subsidiary to these unmoving dictates, but just as important, is the law that you must never ever go over the same piece of ground twice when you are mowing the lawn.

How many times have we seen this message conveyed in the sacred texts of our ancient civilizations and in the remnants of wisdom that survive from the several golden ages of mankind?

Handed down from the old times from generation to generation, this law is an important element in keeping civilization intact.

Those civilizations that have disintegrated — the ancient realms of Carthage, Babylon, Byzantium, even the fabled Atlantis — it can be presumed that somewhere in the annals of their fall were men who for some reason, if reason was involved at all, started running their lawnmowers twice over the same stretch of ground.

How many paintings from the Renaissance era on show a man – perhaps an uncle or teacher or shaman or village wise man, but usually a father – kneeling by a young boy with a lawnmower parked between them, patiently explaining that under no circumstances are you to ever encounter the same plot of ground twice?

To do otherwise goes against Nature herself and violates the Law of the Conservation of Energy.

Why not simply stand outside in all weather and all seasons and simply run the lawnmower over the same length of grass over and over again until you’re dead? It’s more or less the same thing.

I concede that there are exceptions in getting from one side of the lawn to the other across previously mown grass, and that fine people seek allowances in the case of tunnels under the lawn, natural bridges built of tree limbs over the lawn, mighty helicopters to lift you and the mower above a previously mown stretch of grass, various catapulting or rocket backpack devices to fling or power you and the mower past the already-cut lawn, but let these controversies play out in a court of law, where they belong.

For the average man in the average situation let common morality be your guide and never ever pass over the same patch of ground twice. It cannot be said enough.

The necessary thinking that takes place at the front end, and the planning required to faithfully abide by this universal law develops abstract reasoning skills and a deeper understanding of spatial relationships.

This is one of the reasons why it takes some of us so long to actually cut the grass as opposed to thinking about it.

I come to my main point, which is that I see no earthly way that you can achieve this cross-cut woven pattern without crossing over the same patch of ground, not once, but many times over!

I have lain awake at night, many a night, pondering, pondering, and pondering still, and thought through all the various configurations of some of these yards. I have considered and eliminated every way that this devilish cross-cut pattern could possibly be achieved without going over the same ground twice.

It cannot be done.

It is a kind of infiltration into decent conversation to even hear of this practice, and I am on guard against exchanges that may stray into dangerous territory.

It is hard to know what to do if some crazy man starts talking about how he criss-crosses his lawn…challenge him to a duel? Well, what else is a man of honor to do?

This is extreme, however, and it is best to simply not let it get that far.

If there is a fellow at a neighborhood gathering, one of those types who expounds pretty largely on whatever is on his mind at the time, I try to cut him off at the pass.

If the conversation turns to gardens and ornamental trees and soil pH and the best pre-emergents, whatever those are, I know that we are creeping onto dangerous ground.

He, this fellow, looks very much like the type of fellow who will soon actually start cross-cutting his lawn or have it paid to be done; will soon after that tell anyone who will listen that while it may be a lot of work it is worth it in the end; and after that will start a petition with the damnable homeowners association, whatever that thing is, that all lawns in the neighborhood must be cross-cut so that property values don’t suffer. Good God.

I take the situation in hand.

Me: Excuse me, but I have to ask, where are you taking this conversation next?

Talkative and If You Want to Know the Truth, Somewhat Bossy Guy: Why, I don’t know. I was just going to let topics occur to me, or perhaps let them arise from any responses from these other people.

Me: I consider that a dangerous course. We are advised by the best people in the field of meeting and conversing with strangers that we should always have in mind the things that we are prepared to talk about. The very few things that we are prepared to talk about. You don’t want too many.

Talkative and If You Want to Know the Truth, Somewhat Bossy Guy: Too many what?

Me: Too many topics. If you don’t put limits on the range of subjects you are prepared to talk about, there is no telling where the conversation might go. I’m afraid I can’t permit that.

Talkative and If You Want to Know the Truth, Somewhat Bossy Guy: Let me understand this: you want to limit the things that I talk about at a backyard barbecue?

Me: (relieved, almost jovial.) Yes!

Talkative and If You Want to Know the Truth, Somewhat Bossy Guy: Limit it to what?

Me: It’s not so much what you talk about, it what’s you don’t talk about.

Talkative and If You Want to Know the Truth, Somewhat Bossy Guy: Like what?

Me: (Refusing to introduce the dangerous subject directly, I wordlessly jerk my head towards the cross-cut lawn up the street, and do so many times over and make overlapping woven motions with my hands. I think I get my point across, as shown by his response.)

Talkative and If You Want to Know the Truth, Somewhat Bossy Guy: I think I’m going to talk to someone else now.

Me: I think that’s a good idea.

Man, talk about a close call!

You cannot be too careful in these matters. Insidious ideas, as I say, tend to infiltrate even the nicest neighborhoods.

It is inevitable that some weak-minded people will be lost to these dark arts of persuasion, but that doesn’t mean we all have to cave in and overthrow centuries of tradition.