Socking The Loot Away

Socking The Loot Away
Guess I was six or maybe eight and had gotten pretty
good at pushing the old reel type lawn mower around
on our carpet grass lawn for some time.
My cousin, who we visited in Phoenix one summer,
mowed lawns around his neighborhood and made pretty
good loot. He got a dollar for the fronts and fifty cents
for the back yards because they were smaller in his
neighborhood.
I pushed the mower down our sidewalks on Oak Park
Avenue calling on the moms for business and did pretty
good 'till it started to get dry towards the end of the
summer.
Up towards the park there was this old guy, I don't think
he had a wife, that was always out on the porch drinking
coffee in the mornings and beer in the afternoons.
He would just sit in his big rocker all day long in his
undershirt doing this. His yard was a bunch of weeds
and mostly grass burrs, just like at my grandparents farm
southeast of San Antonio. They were big purple sharp
ones. They didn't stick in the bottoms of my feet, but
would in the top and sides while covering my clothes.
This guys yard was nearly as bad.
One day as I was walking by he asked if I wanted to
mow his yard.
"Hey boy, you mow yards?"
"Yes sir."
"You wanna mow mine?"
"Well,,,,,I don't think the mower will cut the tough weeds
and grass burrs."
"Maybe if I pay you to get the grass burrs picked up I can
grow some grass. You wanna do that?"
"Yes sir, how much will you pay me?"
"How 'bout a penny for every ten burrs?"
"OK."
So I ran around picking the burrs for a little while then
set down to count them. It took way more time to count
than to pick them.
I noticed he had some socks on that were full of them
and I had a brainstorm. I figured it would be a lot faster to
put socks on and stomp around getting them full of burrs
then count them later.
My dad had a couple of duffels packed with hunting gear
that had thick wool hunting socks in them. They should
work great.
I ran home, opened one up and got several pairs. They
were way too big, but I put them on and went to stomping.
As soon as one side was packed with burrs I'd turn them
to a clean side and pack them on the clean side.
I did this 'till even the necks were packed to the top.
The old guy was really impressed when I sat down to start
counting the gazillion burrs I'd collected in all those hunting
socks. He said, "Boy! Why don't I just give you fifteen cents
a sock? That way we don't have to spend the rest of the
winter counting grassburrs."
WOW! What a deal. A dollar and a half and I hadn't even
hardly worked. I ran those socks home, put them up and
got the rest. An hour later I had another dollar fifty.
TOO easy.
Well I was out of wool hunting socks, but I had a pocket full
of loot and hadn't pushed that mower a foot.
I told the old guy that I would get some more socks later
and keep working on them.
He was happy and I was on 'cloud nine'.
Some time later my mom got a call late at night. My dad
had gone somewhere hunting way off.
"Hello."
"What are you talking about?"
"NO! I didn't drop the socks in the yard."
"You're crazy! We don't have grassburrs in the yard
anyway."
"Maybe your sisters are mad at you and did it while you
were at the farm last time."
This went on for some time and my mom WAS MAD. She
finally slammed the phone down and went fussin' around
the house for awhile. Then she came into my room and
said "get up, we're going to Moore's Drug Store and get a
malt.
My dad got home a few days later and there was Hell to
pay.
He fussed at my mom and she fussed back. He fussed at
my aunts and they REALLY fussed back. He finally got
some new socks, but I figured I'd better lay low on that
project.
I never breathed a word about this before now, but I never
got to finish my grassburr project either.
Reflections by; Mark Crider
mark@cccoating.com

Story ID:	3577
Written by:	Mark Crider (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Organization:	Corpus Christi Coating & Machine Inc.
Location:	Corpus Christi Texas U.S.A.
Year:	1950