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Show Gravy Bowl 'Lawn' vs. 'Grass' BY GLEN LEONARD Many moons ago, all was in confusion in the Tepee village atop the hill in the Valley of the Briny Waters. Handsome braves and fair maidens were coming and going in great abandon, not knowing which way was right and which way left. Only a few had found the right; the great silent many were mulling in the middle, and what's left was left for the left. (Right?) Two days after the new moon which followed the May Melt subsequent to the Great Spring Snow, someone decided to do something about the disarray and posted a simple sign near the Student Tepee: "Grass-Power!" the sign meaningfully protested. Someone else decided to do something else about the disarray and propped an equally unsophisticated ' poster against the first: "Lawn-Order!" it retorted. Sides were drawn. The crowds congregated upon the green. The sodden speakers aerated their views. The "Grass-Power" group disliked the solid sameness same-ness of the languid lawn. The "Lawn-Order" crew distrusted the differentness of brazen blades. The mulling middle milled about, fearful that their Tepee sod would be sewn with spreading crab-grass, yet uncertain how to stop it. Someone had to speak for the massing middle. Quietly, the Drowsy Chronic-Ickle blossomed forth into full-blown readability in its annual spring showing. show-ing. "A Daisy Crocus!" cheered the middlers. But the Crocus was the voice of many and its focus fuzzied. Someone had to speak as one for many. Then, beside the "Lawn" and "Grass" signs there appeared ap-peared another. Obviously meant as an advertising appeal to the washed-out student dish-i-dent, the sign said: "Itsberry-Rand brand Dryers." And in smaller letters: "I speak for the mulling middle." And he said. "Grass is what the lawn is made of," Itsberry said. "One without the other is a vacant field, a barren desert. Each blade counts. "But crab-grass is a plant of a different order. It can't tell the lawn what color it should be unless a democratic majority of the blades agree." So, the mulling middle marched to the totem poll, along with the grassers and the lawners. The confusion con-fusion quieted. The issue was decided: Grass belonged in the lawn green grass, dry grass, blue grass, brown grass, tall grass, short grass, dead grass and just plain grass grass. A meaningful mixture made the lawn. Crab-grass didn't belong. It violently disrupted the unity and simple beauty of the Union lawn. The moral to this fable is: "A lawn is not a lawn without a blade of grass. But a weed is never either grass nor lawn." |
