Our neighbor was kind enough to spend several minutes with his blower the other day to shift the leaves from the lawn to the curb. It was very nice of him. The second town collection of the year was due, so it was also just in time. Did you ever notice that the first time the leaf collection is done, there are hardly any leaves? This week the wind gusts had conveniently knocked the trees bare, so it was just a matter of getting them off the lawn to where the super duper leaf sucking truck could get them.
I do wonder, though, when in history it became unsightly to have leaves on the lawn.
In forests worldwide (those that haven’t gone condo), leaves have fallen, composted and regenerated the earth’s surface for centuries. Once houses spring up, however, leaves suddenly become an eyesore.
There are many great unwritten rules about life, and leaves on the lawn is one of them. The law reads something like this: the first person to rake their leaves is considered the most diligent neighbor on the block while, at the same time, becomes the most abhorred because the act of clearing one’s lawn mandates that the rest of the block must follow suit immediately.
So the rakes and blowers come out at 7 in the morning and 9 at night, and parking on the street becomes impossible without running the risk of a car exhaust igniting dry leaves. The piles never match the size of the trees around them, usually because the wind blows one trees’ leaves onto a treeless lawn like Murphy’s Law of Leaf Placement. The houses without trees normally don’t own rakes but, if there is a man in the house, there is inevitably a blower. Men must have their toys with high-powered engines on them, you know. In the absence of a motorcycle, it’ll be a blower.
Leaves have fallen out of favor (excuse the pun) in the digital age. Sure there are “leaf peepers” who drive miles to see fall foliage, but when was the last time you saw a youngster collecting leaves to press between two sheets of waxed paper? In the digital world, such as Second Life, fortunately there are virtual leaves (really). Nobody minds if they fall all over everything. At least in some places other than forests, leaves matter. Besides, if somebody turned on a blower in a forest, would it make a sound?
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