A Perspective on the Grass Culture, Ernie Stanley

A few classes ago, during a discussion on the ritualized cutting of grass, a thought struck me and struck me with such force that I found myself revisiting the ideas and the thoughts of that class for days. I even found myself considering the implications of grass and the USA within my research into myths and their ecological connections with humans. It occurs to me that grass may perhaps be one of the most taken-for-granted aspects of the normal American suburbanite’s cultural life.

As the class concluded, I began to consider what grass had meant to me in the aspect of my cultural upbringing. I decided that I had been blind to the enormity of the statement grass made, and had instead, for the better part of 20 years, had simply filed the bladed plant into the position of the default lawn filler. I had always lived in a suburb where everyone had grass, and the pervasive plants grew even where they weren’t supposed to. Not only was grass everywhere, but anyone person who didn’t have a full carpet of grass adorning their house was considered lower than those who did. Those with unkempt, yellowed or browned grass were spared no courtesy in the closed-door gossip as well. And like hair, nails and pretty much anything that continually grew, grass needed someone to sculpt it.

And if my memory holds true, the sculptors numbered in the dozens, and were forever plentiful. They came in the form of the suburban youth and I was no exception. Grass cutting was a ritual of passage. It was a repeating rite of intricate machinery, cutting tools, sweat, and long hours in the sun which once begun easily became part of the routine. Nobody seemed to want the rite, at least at first, but when thrust upon us we took it with stride, knowing that it was an unspoken nod from our elders, who in doing so recognized us as moving on to a higher level on the suburban social chain. Thus it came as a slight relief and somewhat disbelief that when my parents separated my father no longer required me or anyone to mow his lawn (and largely it has not been mowed since). My mother, however, was and still is, adamant that I mow hers. I didn’t complain, after all, it was half the “ritualized” work and I was 16.

Now years later, and after having asked my father why he doesn’t cut his grass in order to gauge just what drove him in his principle I have deduced that it is just not his own laziness. I guessed at first that his attitude was cultural. Now my mother is a 4^th generation American of Anglo-Saxon descent and firmly grounded in American traditions, but my father is a Cuban-American. In fact he was the first member of his family born in the United States and as is the case with most Cubans in the States, my father grew up in southern Florida. I was explained to that in many areas, including where my father grew up, grass is never cut, and never is seen as needing to be cut. However, I proposed that grass was different in Virginia, where my father now lives, and thus the same standards did not apply. And to this my father bluntly stated that it was not about the grass itself and that anyone who disagreed with appearance of the grass in its natural form could take care of it themselves.

I, at first, and for a long time took this as an irrational statement. However, my recent research uncovered a Timucua spoken-word myth. The Timuacas are an extinct tribe of Florida, and have close connections to the Taino tribes of Cuba, of which many Cubans can trace descent from. The myth speaks of the creator Yayjaba and his creation of eternal one-legged ones who were to be the protectors of the land. With his creation of the one-legged ones Yayjaba addresses the plants with a warning for those who disrespect them,

“When they lose that respect, and cast you down before your time, then the breath of Wind will blow the land, and dust will fill the air, and those lacking respect will suffer greatly - Water will roam the land, and to those lacking respect, he will give too much rain, and the land willbe washed away, and the waters will carry away those that lack respect - to others that lack respect, he will withhold his rain giving them none until they dry up and are blown away by the breath of Wind. To any that brings you to destruction, they bring themselves to destruction.”

This warning, which is presented as having been spoken hundreds of years ago, describes the global warming trends we experience today. Could my father unknowingly subscribe by virtue of his culture this warning by letting his grass remain to its natural state, not unnecessarily disturbing the one-legged ones? I would say at least that he portrays irony to the “culturally accepting/culturally assimilating” suburban world to which he refuses to subscribe to. Could the ritualistic grass maintenance be in fact premature “casting down” the one-legged ones around us? I hypothesize that yes, the prevention of grass from returning to its natural state and cyclic progression is in fact unnecessary. I also now begin to question whether the ritual of grass maintenance and specifically cutting has led to the belief that it is ok to tamper unnecessarily with the ecosystem in the name of aesthetics, and human luxury.