The photographs have barely faded. They are full of color and the joy of mowing.
There’s Todd Porter, just a little guy, waving as he sits atop a red Wheel Horse 800 lawnmower. And a second picture, this one of Todd’s dad. He’s smiling. It is 1973, or maybe ‘74.
Todd sent us these photographs to tell us he had just handed down this machine to his grandson. He joins countless other lawnmower enthusiasts who have delighted in passing on their joy of mowing to the next generation, so that they, too may find that same enjoyment.
Like Todd, Dave Bush of White Valley, Pennsylvania, has vivid memories of lawn equipment passed down in his family. It was a Jacobsen 1200 garden tractor. His father sold it to Dave’s grandfather in 1969.
“When my grandfather passed away in 1990, grandma gave the tractor back to my dad and it sat — not running — in his garage for years,” Dave remembers. “One day, around 2006, he asked me if I wanted it and of course I did. Now it sat in my garage.”
Years passed. Until one day, Dave decided to get it running again.
“So, after a carburetor and fuel pump rebuild, it fires up for the first time in many years,” Dave says. “That moment brought back a lot of memories and I was hooked on these old tractors from that point.”
Now Dave regularly refurbishes old machines — a 1970 AMF and an ‘80s Simplicity, to go with the ’69 Jacobsen — that his son Cameron and daughter Anna can now call their own.
The Simplicity also came from Dave’s dad, a living piece of Americana to spread more joy of mowing across a timeless landscape.
“We have several older Snapper and Lawn Boy push mowers that were my dad’s. We use them all, kinda inrotation.
“When it’s mowing day, it’s almost like eenie, meenie, miny, moe.”