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Showing posts from May, 2014

The Great American Lawn -- FAIL!

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I live in a town that I love in most respects. I have great neighbors, who can be counted on to help in a crisis. The town government is open and responsive, for the most part. The schools are great, and did well by my kids. But everyone seems to have a gardener. No one warned us of this before we moved in. For 16 years, we have been limping along on our own. Why all these gardeners? It's Great American Lawn fever, right in my town! Centuries from now, anthropologists will look back at the mid-twentieth century as the period when grass went mainstream. The wealthy always had nice lawns, of course. The word "greensward," meaning an area covered with green grass, was first used around the year 1600. After World War II, however, as home ownership became possible for many, lawn culture took off. My Dad loved his Great American Lawn. Every Saturday, out came the lawn mower, and my shirtless Dad would lovingly cut and groom his quarter-acre of green. In the early days o

Naked wood, at last

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To the left is my dining room table, which I have not seen in 13 years. OK, I should explain. I have not seen the top of it in 13 years. We never had a dining room in our old house. When we moved into the current house, presto! There was the dining room. We had nothing to put in it. It sat naked for a few years, though we finally did see our way to buying a room-sized rug for the spot. Finally we went to a furniture sale, and bought the table you see to the left. It's a gorgeous dark cherry, which we both love. The minute it was delivered, we stuck the table pad and a cloth on top of it.  Bye-bye, table. My mother also had a cherry dining table, and was very proud of it. Her table also lived in seclusion beneath the customary pad and cloth. I suppose she thought I might want it, and she wanted to preserve it for me. After she died, as we cleaned out the house, I knew I had to make a decision about whether to take the table. I pulled off the cloth and pads. There it was