Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 11, 1991                   TAG: 9104100238
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER AFTER IT HAS A CHANCE TO GROW

It is very hard for me to write you a progress report. I haven't made any progress in anything since the late 1940s.

What I am saying here is that I either go backward or stay where I am.

But, I would like to tell you about this really exciting project to which we have devoted ourselves.

Stated simply, we have taken on a lawn reseeding program that rivals the building of the pyramids as far as plain, near-terminal labor is concerned.

People passing on the street are drawn to our side yard by the pitiable screams they hear.

It has had its moments of high drama and tragedy.

I borrowed my son-in-law's rear-tine tiller.

It was brand new. Red. A lovely thing.

I used it for about 45 minutes and something bad happened to the gears, and it made all of these scary noises.

I thought for a while about getting a new job in California, or maybe joining the French Foreign Legion, to forget.

Really, though, sometimes this project bonds us closer together and makes us better human beings.

Sometimes, when I am not screaming in pain from the way my stomach muscles hurt when I am raking all this very heavy dirt around, I actually sing at my work.

I have received some nice comments on my unique treatment of "Old Man River" and assorted chain gang songs.

Let's face it. You can't beat honest toil done in the open air.

I don't even notice my feet hurting anymore because both my elbows hurt worse.

As we go happily along, we have discovered again one of the Truths of Nature, which is that when you don't want it to rain, it always does and vice versa.

That is, once you have sown your grass seed, you won't see any rain until Halloween.

A small bag of grass seed, incidentally, costs about the same as minor surgery with an overnight hospital stay did in the 1950s.

I won't mention the cost of a bale of straw because it tends to make me cry.

Some day, though, we will be rewarded with a perfect carpet of green.

And we will sit in the lawn chairs and think back on tasks now done faithfully and honestly. There will be bird song and maybe even some background music.

We will sit in the lawn chairs because it will hurt really bad to stand up.