Getting Schlechtified with Lennie Hay!
June 19, 2008, 3:04 pm
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Schlechty I am at the Leadership Academy in Austin, Texas put on by the Schlechty Center for Leadership in School Reform. I want to take this opportunity to thank both of my loyal readers. You guys rock.
I had the pleasure today of interviewing the one and only Lenora (Lennie) Hay. She was gracious, mildly trepidacious, but willing to play my game. This interview is different than past ones. I have moved into the modern era… using video… enjoy!
Len_Hay (click the name to the left for the interview)
As always, my archived interviews can be found on the left under the heading interviews.
The Day My World Changed!
Like many of you when I was old enough to push the mower… I was allowed to push the mower. How exciting that time was. How short lived the excitement was. Every week I had to push that mower around our yard. My Dad was a bagger. We bagged the clippings. Not because he was against being ecologically minded. This was in the seventies and mulching mowers hadn’t hit the retail market yet.
I learned in my early teens that the lawn mower was the bane of my existence. I learned how to manipulate the mower so it wouldn’t start. I could only do this when my Dad wasn’t home as he wouldn’t fall for the tricks. He was too mechanically minded to let me get by with not working.
The days of fooling my Mother were ended by my Dad. That was the day my world changed. My Dad was a hardware man. He spent most of his adult life as a manager in a hardware store. Occasionally he would bring home great pieces of hardware technology. The hardware tool that changed my life is pictured below.
This is a new model. Not the model my Dad brought home. This lawn mower is electric. It plugs into the wall. It starts every time with the flick of a switch. No more fooling Mom. No more skipping mowing days. Technology changed my life… and not for the better. Mowing the cord was not an option… too dangerous.
So… mow I did… mow everyweek… always mowing… today… I don’t care much for mowing… I dream of…
A zero turn radius mower. Riding mower. Sit and work… ahh the good life.
