Leafphobia

    My neighbor the slob hasn’t been blown in almost two weeks.

    I sit here watching leaves fall in his yard, leaf by leaf, a Chinese water torture. Leaf by leaf. I want to run over there and catch the leaves before they hit the ground. But that would be trespassing. It’s his rotting yard.

    You see, he’s away. In the city, where he does something. I’m not sure what. Now and then he shows up. I don’t wave.

    What right has he, an away person, to mess up the whole neighborhood with his sloppiness?

    Maybe he’s become one of those Ban the Blowers — a secret conspirator against tidiness. Somebody shoved one of their fliers in my mailbox yesterday. Him? Is he goading me to run screaming into his yard and blow it? (Not me. That’s why we have workers. Leaves support the poorhouse industry out here. They blow, we pay. Everybody’s happy.)

    The Ban the Blowers say blowers are too noisy. They ruin the “quality of life,” whatever that is. Well, let me tell you something, my quality of life is destroyed by the accumulating rot next door.

    And besides, what’s the matter with noise? I welcome it. Hear the roaring traffic and the airplane racket — busy people with busy lifestyles. What’s wrong with that? You want sloth?

    Here in Springs we have one-half-acre lots and each requires two or three leaf-blowing fellows to tidy up — the little guys I see hanging out at the train station waiting to blow. When I hear the screams of blowers, I think redemption! These guys have work! We’re all working! This is industry! America up off its butt! Win, win!

    I say to the leftie Ban the Blowers, take your bamboo rakes and go back where you came from. Noise is beautiful!

    Here’s what the elite anti-leaf blowers say at BantheBlowers.org: “Our citizens are unwillingly exposed to hazardous carcinogens like hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, whipped up in hurricane-force windstorms of pesticides, fertilizers, mold, lead, arsenic, mercury, fecal matter, and more. . . . A leaf blower generates as much tailpipe emissions in one hour as an automobile does in over 350 miles and deposits it all in one front or back yard.”

    Yeah right. Big words. Where’s the proof? I think I have to check these factoids. Fox News told me leaf lefties fake their “research” — you know the morning show with the long-neck-tied guys and the girl in the middle with her skirt up to here? I trust them. The jury is still out. I have lots of questions.

    Meanwhile, my slobby neighbor has still not shown up. And he still hasn’t been blown.

    I just wrote a note and I will sneak it over and tack it on his door. Here’s what I said, a quote from some old movie, “You know how to whistle, don’t you? Just pucker up your lips and blow.”

    Maybe he will get the hint.

    Bill Henderson of Springs is thinking of buying a rake.