Digital Trash

So, yesterday’s blog is in the digital trash bin. Not that it was any worse than all of the trash I do upload, it just didn’t get finished by the time I was finished for the day. Such is life.

I was just doing last nights dishes when I thought of a woman from many years ago. She is the wife of a friend and although we aren’t friends, we have been friendly in the past. I fault myself that for some reason we have never pursued our friendship. Be that as it may, the reason I thought of her is that she was very protective of her lawn.

At the time the kids were small and she had a small kid but they weren’t allowed to play on the lawn. This struck me as odd back then and strikes me as odd now. Throughout my years as a mailman I ran into a number of people who were very dedicated to their lawns. It is also possible that they hated the Post Office in general or me in particular and just wanted to keep me the hell off of their lawn! I generally walked on lawns because it saved me time and most of the lawns were composed of weeds, crabgrass and dog shit. Not necessarily in that order. When I came upon a lawn that was very obviously well looked after, I would stick to the sidewalks because whoever lived in that house really loved their lawn.

My opinion on lawns is now and has always been is that they are there to be walked on. They are pretty, comfortable, cool, springy and a lovely green. Mankind spent hundreds of thousands of years walking on grass and just in the past fifty years have some people decided that grass should be looked at and not used. I still walk on lawns whenever I can even though I am no longer delivering letters. I believe that it is much better for your feet and your well being in general.

A facebook friend has been touting the benefits of “Earthing” for the past few months. I guess the premise is that if you spend an hour or so a day with your bare feet on the earth you will stay healthier in body and mind. I have to admit that when I was a kid I was pretty content when I was barefoot. Well, until I stepped on some glass from a broken Coke bottle that some SOB tossed on the pavement. To tell the truth I am never so content as when I am walking along the beach in Hawaii in bare feet. That might be “Earthing”, or it just might be that all of Hawaii makes you stay healthy in body and mind. I do plan on spending more time in bare feet this summer on my brown, patchy lawn.

I started out talking about my friend and her crazy obsession with her lawn. I guess we all (the crazy ones) have things we do that others find odd or disturbing. I know a guy that has a house filled with stuffed animals. They are cool and creepy at the same time, but they do give him joy. One fellow I worked with had an amazingly well equipped workshop but he never, ever did any kind of work in it. He just loved looking at his workshop. Another guy I know has a collection of cameras, most never used. Personally, that is a collection I would like as well. Some people collect “friends” on facebook which is nuts. Can you imagine how many birthday wishes you would have to send out every year if you had thousands of friends? I have a too large collection of backpacking stoves, at last count I had seventeen or eighteen. If I still did backpacking I could justify my collection. I collect Tim Cards, old tools, chisels, planes, pens, interesting items I find on the ground and any number of bits of wire and washers.

Maybe we are all nuts. Maybe that is the way God meant for us to be. I guess it wouldn’t hurt if more people looked after their grass in particular and the planet in general.

Happy collecting!