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Show A-12 The Park Record Saturday, June 22, 1996 Affordable Opportunity This 3 bedroom, 2 bath home has a great floorplan. Large kitchen, dining room and more. Mountain views and fishing nearby make a perfect choice in this great neighborhood. Check Out These Great Properties! L..-r.J- "T,in,rl.rTlw2 Fabulous Silver Springs Home a I j . i e u..u I 1 i. .11 1 1 ucuiuuiii, j.j naui iiumc lias lull wac- ment, with game area, fireplace, great views, fenced backyard with RV parking. Call Nancy Today! 647-8049 800-553-4666 Nancy Kelly, CRS, GRI ThePrudential Coleman Real Estate Town Lift Office 1030 Park Ave Park City, Utah 84060 (800) 553-4666 (801) 649-7171 itmtmmnQm ft id f 11 FURNISHINGS LEATHER 35 OFF LARGE IN STOCK SELECTION 2756 W. Rassmussen Road, Park City, Utah 647-5880 EXCLUSIVE ' . r .... - Jl ft, !--- rt J W r I o x: e s l t-mnft (mm, arm' i visaa- -zwm LOCAL AREA DEALER Make the trip to any of our locations and we'll pay you $10for gas when you purchase your new Cannondale. 1 v:iia .0. Prices Effective June 22 & 23, 1996 AT OUR PARK CITY STORE ONLY i AVA A1 rAKK UTY STORE U FVf W31 Supplies Last. mnnri nT"7t MiPMi:,:. '."Ml .., h Large Fresh Ripe California Limit 9 Mtelons Boneless Country Styl Spare Ribs $169 Limit 10 lbs. Effective June 22 & 23 at our Park City Store Only 1500 Snow Creek Drive (Behind the Mt. Air Cafe & Top Stop Station) , No Rain Checks After 8 p.m. Sunday And so it goes... Free the mowers It's funny how you can mark certain life changes right down to the second. Some things sneak up on you gradually, like bald spots or the need to add an inch to the waist size when you buy pants. But other things are immediate. I can recall the exact time and place when I became a Republican. It was pretty alarming. I bought a new lawn mower. For all the years I've had my house in Woodland, I've used the mower that was next door at my mother's house. It was a big, solid, bullet-proof mower that my Dad bought from Hoyt's general store in Kamas when I was about 10 years old. I remember the purchase pretty well because we had gone into the grocery store for a quart of milk and left with a lawn mower instead. The old mower is at least 30 years old, and was shared among several houses. It was starting to self destruct, and even the welds where we had welded the handles back together had welds. So I bought a new mower. The political significance of a new lawn mower is not immediately clear. I pulled it out of the truck and poured oil and gas in it, then pulled the rope. That was the instant that I became a Republican. All it took was pulling the rope. As a child of the suburbs, I've seen my share of lawn mowers. They are basic machines, not much advanced from the lever or pulley. A child of 10 can run a mower, and in most households (exclusive of Park City where being seen mowing your own lawn is the kind of social gaffe that will start rumors of bankruptcy), bank-ruptcy), that's what kids are for. So there really is no need to read the instructions on a lawn mower. Pull the rope and cut the grass. No way. This is one of those new mowers with all the government-required safety crap built into it. To start the mower, you have to stand with both feet on the front porch, and your left hand grasping three different dif-ferent levers. Carbon dioxide and motion sensors disable dis-able the engine if there is any other life form within a quarter mile. With your right hand, you can pull the rope. I don't think a left-handed person could ever start this mower. The rope isn't down on the engine where it's supposed to be. It's rigged up through a bunch of guides so the end to yank the rope is up at the push handle on the mower. You can only start the mower while standing so far away from it that you cant reach it. The elegance of this design is wonderful to see. Instead of being able to assume the traditional stance of the victorious hunter with one foot on top of the mower engine, holding it down while you give the rope a manly pull, you yank the rope and tip the mower over because the angle of the pull is about like a curtain rod instead. The old stance, with the foot on the mower and the position of man's dominance over both machine and the encroaching jungle, dated back to the days when our hairy ancestors were killing lions with sharp sticks. Starting the mower was one thing. Actually mowing mow-ing the lawn was another. The new mower has this second sec-ond bar under the push handle. You have to hold that up against the handle, and if you let go, even for a second, sec-ond, it stops the engine. So if you let go of the mower to bend down and move the hose, the engine dies. At By Tom Clyde first I thought this was a manufacturing defect, but was shocked to read in the manual that they actually designed this feature into the mower on purpose. The federal government has decided that lawn mowers are a matter of national security. I dont want the federal government protecting me from the dangers of lawn mowers. I know lawn mowers mow-ers are capable of cutting things that is, after all, what we buy them for. Now you wouldn't think that a safety feature on the lawn mower would set me off that way, but it did. My dog fills the yard with sticks and other items she drags home. When you mow the yard only a couple of times a year, like I do, the grass gets pretty deep and you have to watch for this stuff carefully. So I was constantly letting go of the mower's magic handle and bending over to toss something out of the way. And the engine would stop. The main reason I mow the yard at all is that the mosquitoes are so thick in the deep grass that they are carrying livestock away. Mowing a little patch around the house seems to discourage them in a more acceptable accept-able way that dousing everything with DDT or burning burn-ing old tires. So while I'm pushing the mower around the yard, I'm also swatting at mosquitoes and slapping my legs, arms, and back. Every time I'd go for a mosquito, mos-quito, the mower would die because I'd taken my hand off the magic button. Well, you dont spend as many years as I have on a farm without learning a thing or two about defeating the safety switches on machinery. I got out a roll of duct tape and taped the magic switches in the "run" position, which worked fine except that there is no way to turn the mower off when it's actually time to turn it off and put it back in the garage. The only "off' switch is the safety cut off that I had just disabled. Disabled is maybe not strong enough. In my frustration frustra-tion I had more or less wrapped the safety switch and the handle together like a duct tape mummy. It finally final-ly ran out of gas before I could cut all the tape off. The old mower used to shut off by shorting out the spark plug, which was exposed on the side of the engine and frankly presented more risk of injury than the blade of the mower. I always pushed the little metal tab that shorted it out with my foot instead of my finger because the tab was bent and sometimes didn't make good contact, and instead of turning off the mower, it electrocuted the operator. But it worked. As I mowed the lawn, and wore out the starter rope re-starting after every mosquito attack, I got to wondering why the Democrats would care so much if people lost a finger or two in lawn mower mishaps. After all, the odds are pretty good that the owner of the large suburban lawn is voting Republican anyway. There is a certain Darwinian justice in allowing people peo-ple who stick their hands under a running lawn mower to suffer the consequences. Newt Gingrich wouldn't care, because the guy he hires to mow his lawn probably prob-ably voted Democrat, and the guy Pat Buchanan hires to mow his lawn is an illegal immigrant. So if you notice that my yard is even more overgrown over-grown and unkempt this year than usual; keep in mind that it's not sloth. It's an act of revolution. I'm not mowing the yard with any federally-regulated mower. Summit to summit News from the West THE ASPEN TIMES Telluride Times-Journal Patrons say 'No' to advertising in schools A proposal to sell billboard space in the Roaring Fork Schools drew fire from residents at a recent school board meeting. The proposed policy would allow "corporate sponsorship" of displays featuring fea-turing "positive messages." The displays would be located on school buses, on some school buildings and at the gym and athletic fields. The proposal which was written by the district's community affairs director, is intended to help ease current financial problems. But, according to at least one high school teacher, those financial shortfalls should be addressed with tax dollars, not advertising. Critics of the proposed policy told school board members that kids today are already bombarded with advertising, and bringing more ads into the school environment would encourage even more "materialism." "material-ism." One patron characterized the policy as "prostitution." "prosti-tution." In response to the public input, the school board delayed making a final decision on the matter. Ski industry confab tries to define future customer preferences The National Ski Areas Association held a con ference last month in Charleston, So. Carolina! The theme of the conference was focused on the future of the industry. ' One of the main presentations centered on a survey sur-vey conducted by Hilton Hotels of how people spend their leisure time. Industry executives also used the conference as art opportunity to brainstorm about how to satisfy aging baby boomers and how to bring new people into the sport. -Js m THE TRAIL Vail will expand night skiing, tubing, etc. Vail Associates is branching out by looking at a plan to offer a variety of night-time activities on Vail Mountain next winter. In addition to skiing some of those extracurricular sports will include tubing, tub-ing, skating and snowmobiling. Vail Associates has already received approvals for after-dark activities up on the mountain at Eagle's Nest but the company still needs permit approval for night skiing at the base of the resort from the Town of Vail. Some nearby residents have expressed concerns about how the lighting for night skiing might affect their homes. Sen. Simpson blasts ; park official's figures : According to U.S. Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming, the superintendent of Yellowstone National Park has a hidden agenda. Responding to; Superintendent Michael Finley's recent statement; that federal budget cuts will mean having to shut the-; park down early and open later, Simpson reportedly ' said Finley's true agenda is, "he wants less human use of the park." Simpson has also suggested that current: campground closures at the park are just scare tactics aimed at drumming up more money. ; But according to Finley, his proposal is meant to' preserve visitors' enjoyment of the park and, he said," recreation areas all over the country are having to cut., back on services due to federal budget cuts. " ' t Nevertheless, Simpson has asked Congress to put', $5.5 million back into the operating budgets for; Yellowstone and Grand Teton Parks. Don't miss SCENE.. .twice a week in The Park Record. |