Still plainly visible is John Grindrod’s daughter Shannon’s initials on cement surrounding a fence post from 38 years ago when Shannon was 9.
John Grindrod/The Lima News
There’s something about watching others working around the yard that motivates me to do the same. As for the most common and oft-repeated duties of the yard, well, of course, that would be mowing. Every time one of my neighbors pulls the cord on that mower and begins the back-and-forth process, I have an almost uncontrollable urge to follow suit.
However, a few weeks ago, my work on the grounds that surround my castle wasn’t about mowing. What motivated me was what was going on over the back fence in the back yard of a new homeowner off Gloria Avenue.
You see, once the for-sale sign came down that I’d been walking past during my occasional treks around the ‘hoods that surround me, the new owner began the process of making what he’d purchased what he envisioned when he signed on the dotted line. In the back yard, I saw a trio of workers he’d commissioned with chain saws removing all the smaller trees and bushes that grew wild along the fence line, actually spilling over the fence into my yard, always annoying since it caused me lots of extra trimming work. The men with the chain saws also felled the only other trees in the backyard, two good-sized pine trees, thus giving the new owner the earthy version of a blank canvas upon which he would be able to create whatever he wished.
When I saw the work being done, I was so thrilled to be rid of those overhanging trees that I joined in on my side. As the chain saws snarled and rattled beyond the fence, I began looking at one panel of fencing I put up when I first moved in some 38 years ago. Over the years, vines had grown on the section of fencing, some so thick they were more tree branches than vines. Above the fence section, quite a bit of foliage remained that apparently the workers weren’t going to address.
So, with a hand saw rather than a chain saw that I wouldn’t feel comfortable using and a stepladder, I joined in the brush clearing. As I worked cutting above the fence section, I began thinking quite a bit about the work I did in erecting the section shortly after we moved in back in ‘86. The reason I felt compelled to put up the section of fencing was to block the view of a pretty disgusting looking compost heap the owner at the time decided to start.
Really, given my near-empty tool bag when it comes to mechanical acumen, my actually erecting the fence section, which included digging a post hole and using Quikrete to solidify the post, was pretty amazing. I remembered as I worked my sweet little daughters, Shannon, not quite 10, and Katie, who’d just turned 7, back there jabbering away while watching me work on that early June day shortly before my 35th birthday.
Cutting to present day, as I was raking up the brush after sawing and using clippers to remove the foliage from the fence section, another memory worked its way to the front of my hippocampus. It was a memory of my little ladies who wanted to do what so many others have done for time immemorial. They each wanted to make their perpetual mark in the world. However, instead of carving their initials in a tree, they wanted to put their initials in the Quikrete before it set, which I thought was a wonderful idea. Selecting a stick, each did so.
Dropping to my hands and knees several weeks ago, with gloved hands and a small spade, I swept and scraped aside almost 40 years of landscape debris exposing the cement.
With the concrete visible, I saw what I was looking for, an “S” and a “G.” Katie’s initials, I remembered, were on the other side of the fence section, initials she made before I nailed the fence section to the post.
When I saw those initials still plainly visible after all these years, I got that old familiar lump in my throat and felt the pooling of some moisture in the corners of my eyes. If you’re old enough, anywhere close to my sentimental 70s or even older, I think you can relate to that feeling as I stared at those initials in that cement from so very long ago.
That feeling is while I’m so very proud of the way both have grown up and become the accomplished and successful adults they are, there’s also such sadness that I feel over what the time bandit has purloined, a theft which has put so much distance between what my beautiful daughters are now and the little ones they once were.
John Grindrod is a regular columnist for The Lima News, a freelance writer and editor and the author of two books. Reach him at [email protected].
