Autumn Leaves: War or Diplomacy

by Mark Morelli
November 23, 2006

He stood there like an sharpshooter assassin.

My neighbor from down the street stood rigid near his front yard oak tree, waiting for the last three leaves to fall. It began to drizzle. He tugged on his cap and tightened his grip on his gas leaf blower. His finger tickled the on-off switch anxiously.

He's not alone. There are those who feel so empowered by their leaf blowers they become obsessed. At this end stage of the autumn showdown, they don't these last leaves to even hit the ground.

They'll stand, watch, and when the leaf stem finally lets go of its last grip of life and begins its lyrical spin to the ground, the leaf gets caught in the updraft of some suburban version of the Star Wars defense system, intercepted in mid-air, blown to the curb.

I rake mine into piles. I scoop the piles onto a big plastic tarp, then drag the tarp to the curb and dump it. I do it over and over and over again. And I welcome this physical repetition because it allows me to become attuned to a natural rhythm that helps me think, just as Huck Finn was able to roll his thoughts over and over as he floated down the river.

This Goes to Eleven
Compare that to this pathetic scenario. Not long ago on a walk I spotted a middle-aged man wearing goggles, sound-deadening earmuffs, and strapped to his back was a backpack blower. His machines screamed, whined as he blew the 5 dozen menacing leaves from his yard to the curb, a full thirty feet away.

This doofus was in a testosterone dream world, pretending to be either an astronaut, a World War II GI scorching a Pacific island cave with a flame thrower to root out a Japanese insurgent, or one of Bull Connor's cops opening up a fire house on civil rights marchers. This poor fool wanted noise to make him manly but he ended up looking like a beekeeper. Good Lord in heaven, guide this poor slob to buy a Harley or a Fender Stratocaster.

Raker, Diplomat
Raking brings out the diplomat in you, the more skilled manager, the better parent, the friend who offers guidance. Raking is coaxing the leaves. The leaf blower is all force, the bully who says it's my way or the highway, which of course is a pretty stupid attitude to take toward nature. Nature is always boss.

The Merry Maracas of My Aching Joints
Now I can understand why some may disagree with me because it's pretty evident that we can control nature. We've done so with dams and levees and the like. I'm just saying that leaves aren't something we need to bully. Leaves don't flood us. They flutter to the ground. If you crank up a loud blower and blast the leaves to the curb, you're missing out on something great, the scratch and sweeping sound of the rake against the drying, dying leaves. The rhythm of the rake is the same rhythm of my arms and if it is particularly still I can feel my heart beating a counter rhythm and my body with simple tools and nature become a skiffle band.

Sshh. Listen.
Try it. Take a big rake, a yard filled with leaves, get into a stride, then listen to your panting breath, the sound of your shoes swishing through the leaves, the scratching of the leaves themselves. They're saying, "Shush, shush, shush," and it's good advice because our world is too noisy and we talk too much on cell phones in stores and on 175 cable TV stations and on satellite radio and over our cubicle walls and if we aren't talking then we're plugged into iPods or video monitors in front of treadmills or the car radio. Raking makes me a monk.

Ah, But Do Leaf Blowers Make Better Neighbors?
I'll say one thing for power leaf blowers. They're so noisy that you can't steal them and use them without getting detected. I've never broken a rake but I've loaned them and they've never been returned. That could mean my neighbors are dishonest. Or that they appreciate communing with nature. I choose to believe the latter.