So, Mr. and Ms. Columbus, Indiana, where do you stand on the great American culture wars?
No, no, no. I am not talking about which politician you think tells the biggest lies, or whether you see MSNBC or Fox as the sole possessor of truth, or even whether you think preferences for Big Macs or raw kale salads are responsible for most hospital stays.
I am talking about something far more insidious that separates you from your neighbors. I am talking about your lawn. And, even more specifically, about your emotional reaction to dandelions.
Are you a strict ideologue, a compromising moderate or an anarchist? You can’t walk down your street this first Sunday in June without noticing your neighbors have already taken sides on the issue.
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Three doors down on the left, old Fred — the retired quality control foreman on the crank valve diversity line at Cummins — is out on his front lawn with a 3-gallon spray-can of Agent Orange, searching for some invasive weed to kill. He is a strict anti-dandelion ideologue. His lawn is a living, green carpet, so thick that fleas can’t find a way to get in and earthworms can’t find a way to get out. (Columbus City Utilities named him “Water User of the Year” in 2011, then sought to have him jailed during the summer drought two years later.)
Fred believes in total control of nature. And, when it comes to his lawn, that control is based on the creeds of his church — tied to original sin and the fall of Adam and Eve. The evil impulses of dandelions to bring sin and chaos to God’s good creation must be opposed. (Diversity might be good for crank valves, but it is blasphemous for lawns.)
Fred loves his three dogs for their loyalty and obedience and has trained them to patrol the properly line and urinate on any stray weed that appears to be moving toward his property. He hates cats as much as he hates dandelions, because they are as hard to control as weeds and multiply about as quickly.
Five doors down on the left live the dandelion anarchists, Willy and Tiffany. They are relaxing on their front porch — stretched out on a bench seat that once was a part of their 1988 Volkswagen mini-bus. Willy is braiding dandelions into a wreath for the front door. Their 4-year-old son, Tiger, is running around the front yard making wishes as he blows the tops off of the hundreds of dandelion flowers that have gone to seed.
“Back in the day,” Willy and Tiffany belonged to a commune in Brown County where clothes were optional and nature was to be embraced. They once found a Brown Recluse Spider in their bedroom, but rather than kill it, they gently urged it onto a copy of Rolling Stone magazine and carried it to the Bartholomew County Animal Shelter to be placed for adoption.
They believe their lawn is whatever nature wants it to be. They have seven cats that do whatever cats decide to do. (They once had a dog, but it left in disgust over the lack of clear instructions for daily living.)
Between these two Columbus homes resides Marylou, an independent agent with Mutual of Gnaw Bone Insurance. Marylou lives in harmony with one cat, one dog and a goldfish that has been floating upside down in a bowl on her kitchen table for a week because she hasn’t had time to take it to the bathroom for a proper burial.
Marylou — like most residents of Columbus — is a compromising moderate on the subject of lawns and dandelions. She works long days — sometimes even weekends — and doesn’t have time for the culture wars.
Basically, she just wants to get along with her neighbors.
She pays a teenager to mow her lawn when it gets high enough to tickle her dog’s bottom. She pulls up a dandelion now and then to please Fred. She even bought some weed killer and fertilizer back in March but has had neither the time nor the commitment to put it down. If she does, she knows Willy and Tiffany will be angry about her spreading poison and noxious fumes around the neighborhood.
So, Marylou just chooses to take her Prozac and guiltily deal with the conflicting pressures of her neighbors.
A wall hanging, cross-stitched for her birthday by her truck-driver boyfriend, expresses the feelings they share: “When you are a middle-of-the-roader, you get sideswiped on both sides.”
