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When Mike
was 2, he wanted a sandbox, and his father said: "There
goes the yard. We'll have kids over here day and night, and
they'll throw sand into the flower beds, and cats will make a
mess in it, and it'll kill the grass for sure."
And Mike's mother said, "It'll come back."
When Mike was 5, he wanted a jungle gym set with swings that
would take his breath away and bars to take him to the summit,
and his father said: "Good grief, I've seen those things
in back yards, and do you know what they look like? Mud holes
in a pasture. Kids digging their gym shoes in the ground.
It'll kill the grass."
And Mike's mother said, "It'll come back."
Between breaths, when Daddy was blowing up the plastic
swimming pool, he warned: "You know what they're going to
do to this place? They're going to condemn it and use it for a
missile site. I hope you know what you're doing. They'll track
water everywhere and have a million water fights, and you
won't be able to take out the garbage without stepping in mud
up to your neck. When we take this down, we'll have the only
brown lawn on the block."
"It'll come back," Mike's mother said.
When Mike was 12, he volunteered his yard for a campout. As
they hoisted the tents and drove in the spikes, his father
stood at the window and observed, "Why don't I just put
the grass seed out in cereal bowls for the birds and save
myself the trouble of spreading it around? You know for a fact
that those tents and all those big feet are going to trample
down every single blade of grass, don't you. Don't bother to
answer. I know what you're going to say. 'It'll come
back.'"
The basketball hoop on the side of the garage attracted more
crowds than the Olympics. And a small patch of lawn that
started out with a barren spot the size of a garbage can lid
soon drew to encompass the entire side yard.
Just when it looked as if the new seed might take root, the
winter came and the sled runners beat it into ridges. Mike's
father shook his head and said, "I never asked for much
in this life - only a patch of grass."
And his wife smiled and said, "It'll come back."
The lawn this fall was beautiful. It was green and alive and
rolled out like a sponge carpet along the drive where gym
shoes had trod ... along the garage where bicycles used to
fall ... and around the flowerbeds where little boys used to
dig with iced-tea spoons.
But Mike's father never saw it. He anxiously looked beyond the
yard and asked with a catch in his voice, "he will come
back, won't he?"
Received
on April 1, 2001 in an email
from my friend, Peter A. Gertsen, CAUS
Director
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