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Along Life’s Way
Outside Is Good
for the Inside
By Lois E. Wilson
On this winter day, I am thinking of spring and the pleasure outside
work has given me over the years. When I was five, my dad taught me how
to dig dandelions and paid me five cents for every fifty I dug. It was
a depression era wage! A few years later Abie, a yard worker for us,
showed me how to edge garden beds and trim shrubbery into desired
shapes. After Abie retired, I took over those chores. Our yard wasn’t
very large, and I enjoyed the work.
These activities prepared me to tend my own yard when I married and had
two sons. With hoeing, pulling weeds, edging, trimming bushes, planting
seeds or starts, you see immediate results. The big reward comes later
when flowers bloom and you harvest garden crops. My husband did the
mowing until the boys were old enough to do it safely, then he turned
that chore over to them. They solicited neighborhood mowing jobs and
soon had a list of clients. It was a source of income for them. They
learned to be reliable in doing their tasks.
At our Darke County home, my husband did the mowing and I did the rest
of the landscape chores until we were no longer able. Over the years, I
have hired teen-age boys to do some of the outside work. I paid them
more than minimum wage and gave raises when they mastered skills such
as shrubbery trimming. In this job they were expected to call each week
to see if there was work to be done, be on time, complete the day’s
chore list, clean up trash, and put all tools away.
I’ve had nine different workers—a few for weeks and others for a year
or more. They were all students. Some of them had second jobs and
several played team sports.
One day I went out to see if my young worker had any questions. His car
was in the drive, but he wasn’t there. I walked all around the yard and
couldn’t find him. I was worried and called a friend of his down the
street. He wasn’t there either. I finally reached his mother and she
didn’t know where he was. She called him on his cell phone. You might
say he had been kidnapped by a neighbor of mine at the time who took
him away in his car to do a chore. When the neighbor returned him, I
said, “I hope my neighbor paid you for your work.” His answer was “No.”
I’ve enjoyed watching “my boys of summer” mature. Some went on to
college and jobs; some work at skilled trades; one is a Marine and one
is in the Navy. He is now married and has a young child. Another and
his wife have recently bought their first home. Each has been great to
work with and know.
Whatever they have achieved and wherever they are, I wish them success
in all their endeavors and hope the outside work they do in life always
makes them feel rewarded inside too.
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