Yard work began on the grounds of a Church of Christ where Dad preached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A half acre of lawn, flower beds, trees, shrubbery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Weeding, mowing, raking, clipping, pruning, aerating, thatching, seeding, sweeping, edging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All labor by hand,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
including pushing a flywheel mower<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to the Moon and back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad taught me how to work<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and I went to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No radio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My older sister never joined us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad and I rarely worked together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we did, we never talked about Jesus,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
probably sports or Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Never about the silent unraveling<\/p>\n\n\n\n
of our family due to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never told him I became an atheist<\/p>\n\n\n\n
after he baptized me on my tenth birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad favored simple tools,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
nothing newfangled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of his maxims: \u201cUse the right tools for the job, or don’t try.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His favorite tool: a rake with tines that trilled through the leaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We raked a million leaves together<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with our unique system of gathering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The beagle blasted through every pile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We played football in those leaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad would float a pass over a pile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would lay out and snare it,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the beagle occasionally intercepting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My favorite tool: the stand-up weed puller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He paid me a nickel for every weed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Weeds paid for all my football cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I organized them not by teams,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
rather, the best names:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Butkus, Sixkiller, Hamburger, Grabowski.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad died last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was there at the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I bought a house in Coos Bay<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to escape his death,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with a wild, forsaken yard:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
waist high grass, English ivy, blackberries, weeds galore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My first morning,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I went to work<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with the husky at my side,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with the same tools,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the same old technique,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
except for classic country<\/p>\n\n\n\n
on the radio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yard work began on the grounds of a Church of Christ where Dad preached. A half acre of lawn, flower beds, trees, shrubbery. Weeding, mowing, raking, clipping, pruning, aerating, thatching, seeding, sweeping, edging. All labor by hand, including pushing a flywheel mower to the Moon and back. Dad taught me how to work and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9827,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-poetry","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9826"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9829,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9826\/revisions\/9829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}