August 28, 2009
Picture of the Day
The view from part of the cross counrty trail in back of the school.MOWINGPosted for Friday August 28th............................A couple of changes have been made at school for the new school year involving the custodial staff. One of which is I now will be working outside for the first part of the day, then going inside after the end of school, cleaning the downstairs elementary rooms, the same ones I cleaned last year.
Gary Stewart and I have been working the last couple of weeks trying to get the grounds ready for the start of the year. It’s a lot of work. I have been doing a lot of mowing, something I haven’t done since the summer of 2002. Remembering that summer made me think of a moment, but I need to do a backstory first, so bear with me.
The summer of 2001, the fire department was getting ready for the Muster Games at the Vermont Firefighters Convention, which were going to be held in Bennington that year.
We were practicing, I was still a member of the team, and I decided to do something. There had always been talk of bleaching our hair, or some other thing to as a team. I was looking at all the team members one practice, and noticed most of them had some kind of facial hair. Most were goatees. So I decided to grow a goatee.
Another thing we decided to do was all have matching kerchiefs, and wear them on our heads, biker-style. We also marched in wearing sunglasses, so we really looked like a bad bunch. (I will look for a group picture and post it here when I do.)
After the games, people said I looked good with the goatee, so I kept it. It was kinda itchy for a while, but I got over it. After September 11th of that year, I also kept it as a tribute to the firefighters who died at the World Trade Center.
I kept the goatee until the summer of 2003, when Margie was directing 1776 for the Fairfax Community Theatre Company. As part of the play, none of the men could have facial hair, and some guys were shaven clean for the first time in YEARS. I decided to shave mine off as well.
So now we are talking about the summer of 2002. The regular outdoors guy was on vacation, and I was asked to keep up with the mowing of the fields. We had a hot spell. Humidity, sun beating down, etc. We had a box of these white rags that had this green sewn trim on them. I think it was t-shirt material, or something. I grabbed a large piece one morning, and headed out to mow. I was going to use the rag to wipe the sweat off my face. On my way out, I thought, I could tear off the trim, put the white rag on my head, and tie the trim around my head so it would stay on. The sun would not be beating down on my head, and maybe I might be cooler.
So here I am, riding around on a tractor, with a goatee, and a white rag on my head, the tail of it flapping in the breeze behind me.
An elderly elementary teacher, who has now since retired, drove in the back parking lot, parked her car, and got out. One of our student summer workers happened to be walking across the lot. He said she got out of her car, looked at me, looked at the student, and asked………………….
“Is Osama bin Laden mowing our lawn?”
“Um, no…..that’s Mike Cain.”
She was joking, of course, but it was funny when the student told me.
