Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Honolulu Lite
THERE is one clear piece of evidence that we are witnessing the collapse of society as we know it and it is not that the presidential election is entangled in a World Wrestling Federation-type pretzel hold. The answer is
blowin’ in the yardThe uncertainty engulfing the presidential election is minor compared to the dark symbol of the republic's impending implosion.
That omen, that harbinger of doom, is nothing other than the gas-powered leaf blower.
The leaf blower is a perfect symbol of our time, a machine that celebrates selfishness, self-centeredness, self-absorption and several other words in which "self" plays a starring role.
I recently drove by a neighbor employing a leaf blower in a way typical of many who use the implement: He was blowing leaves, twigs and various other yard debris into the road. He was perfectly demonstrating the leaf-blower's egomaniacal credo: Out of yard, out of mind.
It brought to mind a scene several years ago on New Year's Day when we (meaning my wife and my neighbor's wife) spent hours sweeping up mounds of red firecracker paper from our driveways and cul-de-sac, putting it in black plastic garbage bags for the rubbish truck. No sooner were we (they had my spiritual, if not physical, support) finished cleaning the street, than a neighbor on the corner busted out his leaf blower and started blowing red paper from his yard and driveway onto our street.
At that point, I became physically involved because in my painful self-inflicted medical condition (i.e. hangover) I confused the sound of the leaf blower with that of a jet airplane apparently seconds from plowing into the house. We pointed out to the guy that we had just finished cleaning our street and it was unneighborly of him to simply shoot his crap off his property. (I wanted to urge him to use a rake instead of the leaf blower but, frankly, the sound of bamboo rake tines scratching across concrete would have proved just as hurtful as the blower.)
The situation was resolved without an incident of Leaf Blower Rage, which, next to Road Rage, is the fastest growing area of conflict along the rage line.
Raking (quietly) on grass used to be a way of telling your neighbors that you respected them. You kept your yard clean and you kept your rubbish to yourself. If you did use a power mower or some other loud lawn implement, you used it at an appropriate time. (The appropriate time to use a loud lawn implement on New Year's Day is Jan. 4).
But many leaf-blower users don't care how annoying they are. They don't care that shooting their junk out of their yards and into the public domain is not a decent thing to do. They just don't get it.
And they don't get it in the same way that the Romans didn't get that drunken orgies and rampant moral decadence may be a swell way to while away the hours, but a crummy way to run an empire. (Connecting the use of leaf blowers to the collapse of the Roman Empire may seem like a stretch, but trust me, it's the little things that lead to an apocalypse. When Nero instituted the two-drink/two orgy-partner-minimum rule, Rome started going down the toilet.)
Whoever eventually wins the presidential race should include in his inaugural address a couple of lines about the danger of leaf-blower use to the stability of the country. At the very least, it would take our minds off Florida.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
The Honolulu Lite online archive is at:
https://archives.starbulletin.com/lite