Toro Lawn Mowers

The red Toro lawn mower I followed around for hundreds of hours in my youth was an amazing machine. It was easy to maintain, started almost every time the first time, and cut grass like nobody's business.

Our model had a cloth grass bag and the faint smell of oil mixed with old grass clippings. It was an effort to cut our small lawn, and those of our neighbors who paid me out of pocket. Our Toro was reliable to a fault and made me money beyond my wildest dreams in an era when teenagers were expected to cut grass, rake leaves, and shovel snow as part of the covenant with their parents.

We may not have liked being asked to do these tasks, like shoveling in the early morning hours so our fathers could work to the train with one less inconvenient walkway, cutting the grass on hot summer days, and raking leaves until our hands blistered during the autumn. 

Fortunately, in our house these efforts did not go without remuneration. We were never told how much we would make by accomplishing any of these chores. It was simply the old WASP nod that encouraged us to complete our work. I miss this sophistication in our current environment when children on their own are allowed to call Child Protective Services to complain about the requests of their parents.

If they only knew how these chores allowed their parents to save for their college educations by not having to pay other people for this hard work. We were all lucky to learn the lesson of hard work and what it takes to prosper and survive in the modern age by being asked to help the family.

Besides being lucky enough to choose our parents there is not another lesson from my childhood which I value as much.