Ode to Mowing

  My dad gave us a used mower, which I am very thankful for. The grass in our yard gets pretty tall. Our landlord doesn't like it if we go for a week without mowing. And, besides, I think mown grass looks good.  But I was mowing pretty shortly after I received the new mower and I started thinking about Shakespeare. Why is that? I don't know when I started doing this, but sometimes when I am doing something mundane, I like to picture historical figures doing these same things. I guess that it is a form of entertainment to me. So, I think of Abraham Lincoln changing dirty diapers. I think of Florence Nightingale and Julia Roberts doing dishes. I sometimes think of Albert Einstein sitting on the toilet, maybe with diarrhea. I don't think I'm weird to do this. I bet there are other people whose minds work this way.  (But, if not, it's okay.)

    Anyway, I was thinking of Shakespeare, and wondering if he ever had to mow a yard. I don't even know if they had such machines as mowers back in the 1500's. I decided that he did not ever mow. Maybe he pruned hedges, or rose bushes. I am almost certain that he pruned rose bushes and almost as certain that he did not mow yards. I believe that if he had ever mowed a yard, he would have somehow worked it in to one of his writings. He would have had "The Ode to Mowing" or maybe a sonnet. But he didn't. He did mention a rose in one of his writings; "A rose, by any other name..."

   I am convinced that Shakespeare would have written about mowing if he ever did mow. See, when you are out there mowing grass, you have all this time to think. It doesn't take much thought to cut grass, at least, not the way I do it. So you push the mower and you think of other things. (Like the question, "Did Shakespeare ever cut grass?") You think about what you did the week before. You think about how all this rain we are having this spring makes the grass grow faster, and that makes you have to mow more. You think about the fact that it is going to rain for the next three days, and the grass is going to grow again, and you will have to mow it again. How futile is mowing! (I think this would be the first and maybe the last,  line to Shakespeare's "Ode to Mowing".)

   Just saying.