July 2018 – Mike's Life

And the silent cowboy rode off into the distance, knowing the town would be just fine. “Who was that cowboy?” someone asked. “We’ll never know. We’ll never know,” I said.

– Ending to a Western novel I just made up.

So my wife and I were having a leisurely stroll on a South Carolina back highway the other day. We were chatting about matters of great import, as folks are wont to do on backcountry roads. I think the particular matter was what to do for dinner.

And then up ahead we saw movement. Green movement. Big movement. Because a big ol’ tree decided that was the perfect time to uproot and come across the road.

I am not sure what either of us said, but let’s go with, “Wow!” or “Golly gee willikers!” or something else g-rated.

I hit the brakes and pulled off to the side of the road. There was a house and driveway right there, which was fortunate as driveways on this stretch of road are often miles apart.

I called highway patrol on my phone (*HP for you folks in South Carolina!), and went to assess the situation. The tree was blocking the westbound lane and then some. It had turned this 55-mph stretch of highway into a one-lane road.

Realizing we were about to have some serious traffic issues, I handed the phone to my wife so she could finish giving details to highway patrol. I went to the road and saw a line of cars approaching. I began frantically waving my arms, and doing kind of a bowing motion with my arms to get folks to slow down. My wife finished up the call giving our location and took a spot slowing the eastbound traffic. Another motorist saw what was going on and pulled over to help with traffic control.

We were waving one lane through at a time, hoping highway patrol would get there soon. And then The Cowboy appeared.

He pulled his big black pickup truck past the tree and then crossed over into the oncoming lane. He put his truck in reverse and backed right up to the fallen tree.

He stepped out of his truck, and didn’t say a word. Because The Cowboy wasn’t here to chat. He was here to get things done. He was an older gentleman who looked like Richard Petty, complete with a perfect mustache. He wore a black cowboy hat, a big shiny belt buckle, and black boots. The mudflaps on his truck said, “Cowboy life.” I kid you not. I am not positive, but the theme from “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” may have started playing (at least in my head).

As we continued to get the cars past the tree one lane at a time, The Cowboy grabbed a strap out of his truck, hooked it around the tree, and then attached it to his truck. He got back in his truck and hit the gas. The tree moved a smidge. One more try. A little more. A third try, the tree came free. But when the third try dislodged the tree, it also skidded his truck into a ditch. The Cowboy got out, cleared the remaining debris off the road, packed up his strap and headed back to his truck. I walked over and shook his hand and told him thanks. I asked him if he thought he could get his truck out of the ditch. He responded the only way The Cowboy would: “I reckon.”
He gunned his engine, climbed right out of the ditch, gave us a thumbs up and headed off into the distance.

Highway patrol did not show up by the time we left. I am sure that when they arrived, they wondered just where that tree blocking the road was. But it was gone. As The Cowboy had arrived and taken care of business, as is The Cowboy way.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, he now lives in Mt. Pleasant. You can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike or at www.mikeslife.us.

I’m not quite ready to declare I have won the war, but I definitely feel like I have won some major battles.

For the first time in years, I have a front lawn.

It’s beautiful. Thick, plush and growing like crazy. Even neighbors passing by have commented about how my lawn looks great.

The best part of a new lawn? A teenager to mow it.

Probably part of the reason for that is how absolutely awful my lawn looked for years.

When we moved into our house, we had a fairly OK lawn. It was spotty in places, but fairly green for the most part. Mix in a flood of the century, and bye-bye lawn. The bulk of my front yard turned into a big rectangle of dirt.

I decided to tackle the problem by seeding the lawn. Prior to doing so, I took a soil sample up to the Master Gardeners at the Clemson Extension Service, who are always super helpful with any issues such as this. The Master Gardener I gave the sample to kinda chuckled when I handed him the sample. He said they’d send it off, but said, “I can go ahead and tell you your problem: your yard is sand.” When the results came back, yeah, he was spot on.

They gave me the directions on how to add nutrients and actual soil to my sandpit and detailed steps on what I would need to do to reseed my lawn.

I followed their directions and in a few weeks, grass was starting to sprout. And it grew. And grew. And grew. Soon, my lawn was back, baby!

And then I went out one morning and saw that all of my efforts had been undone by moles. The whole yard was nothing but bumps of crumbly dirt, the green slowly dying right before my eyes.

Initially, I did the sensible thing, which was to overreact immensely and declare that I was going to turn our front yard into a cactus garden.

My wife, who serves as both the brains and the moral compass of our family operation, stepped in. She said we should try sodding it and work with experts on how to ensure that we eradicated the moles. I told her this was a fool’s errand, and I would be ordering 1,000 cacti ASAP.

So fast forward to the day the sod was going to arrive. We had tilled and prepped the soil, treated it, and followed all the directions to the letter. I had the day off, and had my kids and my daughter’s boyfriend lined up to help me install the sod. They were given the option of helping with the sod or helping with the sod. Their choice.

By about noon, the sod had not arrived. I called the sod guy, and he said, “Oh, man. I messed up.” Turns out, he had a call from another sod customer the week prior canceling his delivery, and he thought it was mine. He told me he could deliver it in a couple of days.

I hung up and told my wife the situation. She said, “He needs to make this right.” I told her there was no point in calling him back, as this was the situation we were in. “Call him back,” she said.

Man, she’s always right.

I called him back, and told him that I had made a lot of plans to be able to work that day on the sod, and it really messed everything up. “Tell you what. Lemme me bring it on Wednesday, and I’ll have my guys install it for you.” SOLD!

The sod has now been in place for more than a month, and I have given it more attention than I give my kids, but in all fairness, they’re teenagers now, so I’ve done pretty much all I can with them.

I will continue to dote on my new lawn, and give it the TLC it needs. I am continuing to water it religiously, and I keep treating to keep the moles at bay. I am hopeful the end of this war will be soon, and I can declare final victory. And then move on to a cactus garden in the backyard.