mowing the lawn on father's day

today is father's day. my first official duty today was mowing the lawn. it felt good to be outside after being trapped indoors with the flu pig. but since today is father's day, i did my lawn mowing a little bit differently, the way my dad would.

i pulled out the red push mower. now, honestly, it's one of those things that drags you along with it and you don't really get the joy you should out of pushing it around, but because i am still feeble i had to lean into it quite a bit.it almost felt real. i could not find a cowboy hat. i know there's one in brooklyn and i think there's one here, but i searched and came up empty. my dad would have a hat. to match this hat, my dad would wear his cowboy boots with white tube socks. my own cowboy boots are sitting in brooklyn with the hat, i guess, so i donned my frog green rain boots, of similar enough size and shape to create the desired effect. i pulled up my hiking socks so they'd peek over the tops of the boots, but they'd slink back down as soon as i started to walk.

next my dad would wear some raggedy cut off denim shorts. not daisy dukes or anything, but still, shorts that would make you take a mental note that you'd seen a man mowing the lawn in cutoff jeans and cowboy boots. i do not have cutoff jeans for a variety of reasons. i do have a pair of brown corduroy pants that i spilled oil all over. they're cut off now and worked quite well, i think, with the lovely rain boots. i intended to wear an old undershirt so my armpit hairs could sway in the breeze like my dad's, but it was too cool outside for armpit hairs and instead i wore a black t shirt. i am sure the neighbors are grateful.

still, i think anyone driving by today who might have venutured this far north and east would have seen me shoving the mower across the clover in the front yard and would have recognized, not so much me, but the spirit of my dad.

thanks, dad.