There is nothing even remotely romantic about a lawnmower. Memories of first dates, first burnouts, and first breakdowns are topics of exaggerated automobile-based bench racing in any garage in Christendom and beyond, but the smell of a freshly mowed lawn merely reminds one of sweaty work out in the back 40. A few recent posts on lawn mowers, however, reminded me how much I appreciate this most underappreciated of mechanical devices. I’ve had my lawnmower since about the time I got my driver’s license, and it’s beyond time I gave it a little recognition.
One of the most memorable days of my life was April 19, 1993 – two days after my 16th birthday. A Monday. I had the retrospectively not-that-disappointing bad luck of turning 16 on the weekend, so on Monday I skipped track practice to go to the Secretary of State’s office in the drenching spring rain. My parents very hesitantly allowed me to take my mom’s ’88 Mustang GT convertible out for a ride, and I just visited a couple of friends, who seemed less excited than I was that I arrived at their respective houses as the captain of my own proverbial ship.
It was a cool car for a 16 year old to be driving. My parents still have it.
My memory is less clear regarding my lawnmower, but I know it cost $170 and my dad paid for either $70 or $100 of it. Judging by the serial number on both the mower and engine, I probably bought it right around my 16th birthday. It was a nondescript, no-frills, no-name Meijer mower, assembled by an outfit named American Yard Products, although that name appears only on the data sticker. (For those who have never heard of Meijer, it is a Michigan-based department/grocery store.) My only high school job was mowing lawns, and I only mowed a couple, my grandpa’s and his friend’s. In retrospect, showing a little more initiative during my teenage years might have paid off in the long run, but I digress.
The prior year, however, my dad’s old Roper with a chain-driven self propeller that I had been borrowing burned so much oil that he decided to sell it, leading to my heretofore only mower purchase. I was the only one home when an older guy named Al came over to take a look. It started on the first pull without one indication that the same action typically resulted in a garage-enveloping cloud of blue smoke. I decided that either I had just witnessed my first miracle or it was out of oil. Either way, Al seemed convinced, although I don’t believe that he actually shook my hand that day; I vaguely recall a protracted negotiation with my dad involving payment in silver dollars. Dad politely declined the generous cold, hard cash offer, but Al eventually did go home with the Roper AND a Toro rider dating back to the 1970s. Dad was in a lawnmower-dealing mood that year, I guess.
As I’ve already gotten far off track, it may behoove me to discuss what I like about my old mower. As I mentioned, it’s basic – it has no self-propeller, electric start, or GPS – it’s an engine with four wheels and a deck. When I bought my house in 2005, my mower came with me and has been here ever since. Granted, my lawn takes 13 minutes to mow, which encourages my mower’s longevity, but I’ve only had to do basic maintenance aside from a few small repairs. I change the oil every seven years or so. Right now, it’s running Valvoline VR1 10W30 because I had an extra quart lying around from when I was running a new flat tappet cam in my Mustang over five years ago. I replace the spark plug when the engine sounds a little funny.
One thing I have had to do is replace the fuel diaphragm. My lawn mower has an obvious tell, like a poker player, when something starts to go wrong with the fuel system – the primer bulb contracts like it’s sucking on a Sweet Tart. When that happens, either the fuel pickup in the tank is plugged or the diaphragm has gone bad. I’ve only replaced it once or twice, and it’s such an easy and inexpensive job that I don’t even mind doing it. Good old Briggs and Stratton simplicity.
The carburetor is literally mounted to the gas tank, with the diaphragm sandwiched between them. The whole thing is held together by a handful of screws and bolts – all jobs should be this easy.
After 28 years, I recently managed to smack the throttle lever on a fence or the deck or something, snapping off the handle. The replacement cost nine dollars at the local Ace Hardware. Aside from a new blade or two, with an occasional sharpening, that’s been the extent of this mower’s to-do list. I add Stabil to the gas tank in the winter, and it starts up on the first or second pull in the spring. 
My longest mechanical relationship has been with my family heirloom ’65 Mustang. The smartest purchases I’ve made have been my ’65 Skylark and a ’76 Schwinn Sting-Ray. The smartest thing I’ve ever done was marrying my lovely bride. But my AYP (Link to short blurb on corporate history here.) from 1993 deserves a lot of credit for its reliability and for being something I don’t mind walking behind for 28 years.
Sometimes, my two longest lasting mechanical relationships have worked together; while I had my Mustang partially torn apart again in the summer of 1995, I threw my mower in the trunk to get to my “jobs,” such as they were.
Sure, I’ll stick to my assertion that there’s nothing romantic about a lawnmower. It’s an appliance. But as much as mowing the lawn is a chore, I can still think back on my awkward teenage years, a little of that time spent mowing, listening to the Doors’ The Soft Parade album on headphones and a cassette before I knew it was generally considered the worst Doors album, or the Eagles’ Greatest Hits Volume One before I realized that I didn’t really like the Eagles all that much. I can dream about those days in the yard doing mediocre bodywork and going to my first “real” job as a Target cart attendant in the evenings. I can think about graduation, not knowing what to do with my life, buying a house, getting married, owning too many old cars at one time, and being mad about my neighbor’s dead tree hanging over my roof. My rose-colored lawnmower’s been there for all of that. Not bad for not really having a name.
When I bought my house, I also got a lawn. I hate mowing. Now, twenty years later, at the same house, I am watching my 14 year old mow the lawn, and I couldn’t be happier to be rid of that task. I hate lawn farming.
It is a very small lawn. So, when we first arrived as a newly married couple, I was convinced I could handle the lawn with an electric mower. My folks had an electric with an electric extension cord and it ran for years. So knowing I wanted a newer one, I bought the biggest most expensive Black and Decker rechargeable mower. In the Spring, I was able to cut the lawn.
However, by the time the grass was lush and green, the electric ended up just buzzing and massaging the grass instead of cutting it. Instead of the 30 minutes of mowing, it took me 2 hours. I had to do half/cuts because the mower struggled through the thick Summer lawn. The battery wouldn’t last two hours. By the time I was finished with the front, and side yards, the mower could barely do a thing. I would have to stop and do a recharge.
My neighbor is younger and more traditional. He had a standard push mower with a Briggs and Stratton. After another frustrating day, my Black and Decker on the recharge, he asked me if I wanted to use his mower to finish up.
It was loud. It vibrated my arms to my back, it stunk like raw gas, and it was freaking glorious!
I bought a Husqvarna the next day and after six years, my son uses the same mower. The expensive Black and Decker is folded up in a far corner of my work shop. I hate even looking at it.
Congratulations on keeping the mower running for 28 years (and counting I presume). When my parents moved into their first house in the summer of 1961 Dad bought a rotary blade push mower with a Pennsylvania Cable label on the front of the metallic beige deck and a Briggs & Stratton 2-1/2 horsepower engine. He thought Tecumseh engines were junk for reasons never explained to me.
I know the mower, with the original engine was still going strong well into the 1990’s. Dad may have finally let it go after a flood in 2001 put 8 inches of water in the house and a little more in the storage closet where the mower was kept.
That yard appliance really did yeoman’s service. Not only did it cut the grass in our suburban yard for 30 years (and remember in Houston lawn mowing was at least a weekly exercise from April through October) I also used it in my teenage lawn mowing business for a few seasons in the 1970’s.
I earned enough in my first year to buy a new Schwinn Varsity 10-speed bicycle. Over the two next summers I accumulated enough cash to put a down payment on a three-year-old BMW 1600 coupe (50% down with Dad financing the remainder over the next year). By that time I was driving so I had a job as a gopher (go-for) for a residential roofing company. I was making more money but really earning it. In Houston lawns have shade – roofs, not so much.
I mention the lawn mowing gig to demonstrate that the mower and B&S engine gave the family excellent value over three decades.
I also remember my dad saying something about not liking Tecumseh engines, but I don’t remember why. He let me take apart an old mower engine to see how it worked when I was probably 12 or 13 – it may have been a Tecumseh. I never put it back together, which was too bad, because it was running when I took it apart.
3 Tecumseh singles died in our yard in rapid succession they werent any good compared to the opposition.
The absolute best money I ever spent was on every riding mower/tractor I ever bought. Next year I reach the pinnacle when I sell my 2017 Toro zero turn and buy a Ferris zero turn, with 4 wheel coil suspension. I expect every time I mow the 3 acre homestead will feel like a day at the beach 🙂
Geez, the decks on these usually rust through pretty quickly. Nice work keeping it clean. Mower memories are always good to hear. I miss my Dad’s 1956 Homco. He used it for 25 years until upgrading to a Two Guys Lawn Queen when I was 16.
That thing looks as clean and shiny as the rest of the fleet….I’m guessing that it gets more attention than 98% of the cars on this planet, including the occasional wax and oiling!
Thanks! I can’t believe it looks as good as it does; I’ve never waxed it, but I have hosed it off and dried it a few times.
I’m around the same age and the only thing I can think of that I own from then is a really nice knit shirt I bought from the 1995 REM Monster tour.
I’ve never had a lawn in my adult life, but if I did, I’d hope to have a solid mower like that. “They really don’t make them like they used to.”
Yes, lawnmowing is a chore, but it’s one that I enjoy… and I always have. I mowed my parents’ lawn when I was a kid, and also a few other houses in our neighborhood, usually pushing dad’s Lawn Boy down the street. My favorite customer was an older couple with a big lawn who paid me $20 to mow – a virtual fortune for a 1980s teenager. It was good work, especially considering that I enjoy working outside. I never spent a cent of my lawnmowing earnings on typical kid stuff, but instead saved it (and money from other odd jobs) in order to buy a car.
These days, I have a house with a 15,000-sf lot, and an battery-electric push mower that was left by the previous owners. And mowing the lawn is my favorite household chore.
I hope you get many more years from your lawnmower relationship!
I enjoy mowing the lawn as well, especially in March / April when it heralds the arrival of spring. But then my inner city lot is only about 20% the size of yours, so the whole thing can be done in 20 or 30 minutes. 🙂
From an almost twice-a-week job in May to once-a-month in August, it parallels my level of enthusiasm pretty closely.
I never liked mowing the grass when I was a kid. My dad was good at growing a proper, lush and healthy lawn. He also seemed to enjoy mowing this big lawn with a push mower. For him cutting the grass on Saturday meant breaking a sweat and when he was done drinking a cold beer and eating a sandwich while listening to a ball game. This was all infused with the combined odors of freshly cut grass, sweat, beer, ham sandwich and tobacco. It was pretty nice. As I got older I took over the grass cutting from my brothers who had briefly taken over from the old man. As soon as they could they struck me with the job. My cutting of the grass was a solo act. It was all mine to do, there was no one around to help or keep me company. My dad and brothers were off busy doing things that were not cutting the grass. I was still a skinny little kid and that push mower was hard work. The yard had sloping back yard and did I mention that my dad actually knew how to grow a thick lush lawn? What I wanted was a power mower like just about everyone else in the neighborhood even the people who had shitty, patchy, crappy excuses for lawns. Never got a power mower. Even up into his 70s my father still cut his lawn with a goddamned push mower just for the exercise. I don’t worry about lawns anymore. There is a bad drought in California and the water rates have gone up so I don’t water my lawn anymore. Water is expensive out here. The winter rain greens it up but it turns brown a couple months after the rain stops in March . I hit it with a weed wacker when it gets over 3″ and that’s it for the year. I water all of the established shrubbery around the yard. My trees are live oaks except for a single buckeye. They don’t need watering. I never got that power lawn mower unless you count my Stihl weed eater.
Aaron65, you are a weirdo writing about your love of your lawnmower. I could never feel this way about a lawnmower but if you want to talk about rototillers I should someday tell yo tell you all about the greatest rototiller of them all my Ariens Rocket Front Tine rototiller, the Cadillac of rototillers. That, my friend, is what a rototiller should be.
Ha ha…not the first time I’ve been called a weirdo. 🙂 I don’t have enough experience with rototillers to verify your claim, so I’ll have to trust you regarding the Ariens. 🙂
Between your story and tbm3fan (and Nate, too, I think) a few comments down, it seems like California’s the place to be if you don’t like to mow!
At this point, only my small front lawn still has grass, I’ve been planting cactus and succulents on both parkways for 30 years and salted the earth in the tiny back yard, it used to grow waist high grass once or twice a year and I tired of fooling with it .
Really green grass takes a lot of watering and we’re in an actual desert although many have greened it up a lot .
-Nate
I’m retired from both work and lawn mowing. I have a landscaper!
But back in the day, I had good luck with Snappers, both push and ride on.
After my Craftsman rider finally died after about 20 years (broken ring and LOTS of smoke), I bought a used late 80’s Snapper rear-engine rider. They rival muscle cars for retained value. Dang thing throws grass about a half-mile.
Now that I’ve owned one, I understand the Snapper Cult a little better. Fairly simple, easy to service, and built like a tank. However, parts are getting hard to find.
Now, get off my lawn!
I hate lawns. Waste of water being in California. The last time I mowed a lawn was in Catonsville when I was 12. Used the electric mower my father had as I can’t recall ever seeing him mow. Probably did but not in my memory and not his style anyway like washing a car by hand. I recall going up a slight hill in the front, I slipped and lost control, the mower rolled backwards, I rolled out of the way but a flip flop didn’t and it got shredded. Now the best thing for ground cover is low growing manzanita. No mowing, no water, no care, and lots of native creatures enjoy the plant.
Great stories .
Agreed about the dry lawns, my 98 year old St. Augustine lawn has super deep roots so it needs little water, is turning yellow in the current drought .
I hate those damned oak trees .
-Nate
You have done well on mower-ownership, and have been pretty much my exact opposite. I have gone through a series of old, inexpensive mowers, only one of which (OK, maybe 2) actually left my care because of mechanical failure. And both of those failures came after years of non-use due to employing a checkbook for the job instead.
I did not purchase my first brand new lawnmower until age 60, when I bought my Snapper rear engine rider. I have paid less for cars. Though that is not so much about the mower being expensive as it is about the price range of some of the cars I have had. 🙂
For some reason, I became curious about American Yard Products after reading this, so I did some research into the company. AYP evidently produced mowers under that name from about 1989-1996, though both its previous and subsequent owners were more well known.
The plant that produced your mower was originally operated by Roper Lawn Mower Co., which opened its South Carolina and Georgia plants in the early 1970s. (Roper’s manufacturing was headquartered in South Carolina, but had two plants in Georgia, in McRae and Swainsboro.) Evidently, a lot of Roper’s output – and that of these factories’ future owners as well – was sold through Sears stores and in the 1990s American Yard Products claimed it was America’s largest producer of motorized lawn equipment. I guess they supplied Meijer as well!
Roper was purchased by General Electric in 1988, which then set about dismantling the company’s divisions. The “Outdoor Power Equipment Division,” which made tractors, lawnmowers and tillers, was quickly sold to White Consolidated Industries (a subsidiary of the global Electrolux conglomerate). Electrolux changed the division’s name to American Yard Products.
The American Yard Products name was discontinued in about 1996 when Electrolux merged AYP with two other Electrolux divisions, Poulan Weedeater and Frigidaire, and renamed the division Frigidaire Home Products.
Then, in 2006, Husqvarna purchased what remained of the company. As far as I can tell, the Swainsboro plant that may have produced your mower is still in operation producing Husqvarnas. The McRae plant was closed in 2019.
I may have some of the dates and/or corporate relationships a bit off, but as far as I can tell, that’s American Yard Products in a nutshell. Well, now we know…
I sense a corporate history piece in the making here, Eric… 🙂
Are you sure…? I’m not.
My best mowers were either curb finds with bad spark plugs or the “4 for $40” ones I used to buy at the local mower shop. Those were usually Toros and you could make two run using parts from the other two. Then sell one of the two for $50. Net cost: Zero. When they quit for the last time, wheel them to the curb to let someone else try them out.
My experience with lawn mowers was that they rusted through long before they failed mechanically, but then I’ve always had electric ones. About 15 years ago I got one with a plastic body – so far, so good.
The real star of the household is a Siemens dishwasher, coming up on 27 years old with only one pump replacement on its service record. It may be several more years before it goes curbside.
Just retiring my 30 year old Toro Recycler mower. Still runs and mows great, son-in-law is taking it up to the lake for its next job.
Bought one of the Ryobi electric mowers that was featured here a couple of months ago. It does a better job mulching than the Toro. Always bought mowers with aluminum decks to avoid the rusted out deck problems. I always remember the steel deck mowers from my childhood days. Unbolt the wheels to change cutting height. Wheels pointing what ever way the flexing, cracking deck let them go. We will see how well the plastic deck on the Ryobi holds up.
I own two AYP garden tractors, both with Kohler engines.
The first, which we call “Paul’s tractor” bc we bought it from my BIL Paul when he moved and no longer needed it, is a 1995 Yard-Pro with a rubberized plastic hood, 50″ deck, 22HP Kohler Command V-Twin with an hour meter, and hydrostatic drive with an oil filter.
The other one is from around the same timeframe…a top-of-the-line Craftsman Garden Tractor with a 50″ deck, a Kohler V-Twin that says “22HP” but has the same model number – CV22S – as the Yard-Pro, 3-speed gearbox, with a high and a low range.
Even though the tractors look completely different, they’re VERY mechanically similar and the decks appear identical. Zerk fittings, cast-iron front axles, etc.
We have two acres to cut here so both tractors get a lot of use.
@Chas ;
How do you like the hydrostatic drive ? .
All the equipments I ever worked with/on that had it, also had a horrible jerk when the drive took up .
I like the looks of the Western Auto advert, the one time I tried to go into a Western Auto store, in Alhambra, Ca. I saw a rack of cheap suits in the front window, by the time I got my ’46 Chevy locked up and walked to the door a Mexican guy in a cheap suit and bad attitude stopped me from going in the store saying “we don’t have anything you want” .
He looked like a cartoon character , I only said once ‘I want to go look around’ he blocked my entry and I never went back .
I guess in the 1970’s they no longer sold anything automotive related ? .
I like hearing about the lawn mower and garden tractor stories, back in the day there was always that _one_ guy who’d rescue dead ones and bring them back to life, clean up and re sell them .
-Nate
Does Meijer even sell mowers anymore? I haven’t seen one at the store near where I live, Holland MI. I bought a utility trailer, a 4’x4′ sheet of plywood and a car top carrier from them to get us by with carrying all the baby stuff for our 1st born some years ago. Don’t see any of that anymore.
Meijer has grown quite a bit over the years in spite of the downfall of other retail giants. They’ve opened a number of stores from Green Bay WI down to Milwaukee I believe, along with distribution centers as well. I had heard a story that Sam Walton postponed opening Walmart stores in Michigan, hoping they could buy out Meijer. The Meijer family said no sale! Meijer is still a private corporation.
I don’t remember the last time I saw a mower at Meijer…it’s been a long time. We still do most of our grocery shopping at Meijer; I like it way more than I like Walmart. Our Meijer is right next door to Menards, so we can easily stop at both places, which is something we often need to do for some reason.
…that miserable flywheel brake.
lol
No problems with it for 28 years…in fact, I just took the little cover off for the first time to make sure it was still there. It was. 🙂
It’s tough to argue with success… that doesn’t mean we won’t. lol
I used to own a home on two and a third acres of which an acre was lawn and the remainder was woods. I used an old Simplicity garden tractor to mow it until it got to the point where I was spending more time fixing things that broke on the tractor and its mowing deck than actually mowing.
I bought a bargain basement gas engine MTD brand 20 inch push mower from a big box retailer and mowed the lawn with that for several years until I sold the place and moved to a much smaller property with about a tenth of an acre.
The mower was so basic that in order to change the cutting height, the wheels needed to be unbolted from the deck and rebolted into different holes…..no adjusting levers, so I always kept the cutting height set at the shortest (lowest) setting.
By the time of my move, that old mower was showing its age and I used it for 3 more years on the new property until the starter rope broke one day.
I took the starter assembly off the mower in order to fix it and then the rewind spring came loose along with some other parts which went flying across the garage floor.
I decided to retire the mower and bought a better model with high rear wheels, lever adjustable height, ultra quiet exhaust and ‘one pull start’
After using this new one for its first cutting, I wondered why I put up with using the prior worn out bargain basement model for so long.
I bought a 2-cycle 4 HP Lawn Boy in 1987. It’s now at our country home. I run it dry after each use. We have about an acre and a half of hilly ground to cut, and have a guy who cuts it about once a month. if we are out there (Texas Hill Country) in between mowings, I fire up the Lawn Boy; fill it with gas mix, pull it once, and it starts on the second pull. I have a 6 HP at home that I bought in the early ’90’s the last year Lawn Boy made 2-cycle mowers. I had a neighbor years ago who had a ’60’s model that was his uncles. It sat in a barn for decades. He took it to a Lawn Boy dealer near us, had it tuned up, and it works to this day. It’s too bad the EPA outlawed 2-cycle mowers.
As a long time Michigan native, I too have the almost identical Meijer mower from almost the exact same year . . . even broke the throttle lever last year when I ignorantly bumped into the boat . . . amazing. Other than that, also mint shape.
Purchased mine at 2:00 am back in the good old days before Meijers had to close early from too many criminals. A shame this country shouldn’t tolerate, but foolishly does.
P.S. Enjoyed your writing style.
I have a LawnBoy I bought sometime around ’87. My neighbor had one from the ’60’s he inherited from his uncle. His son owns it today. Both mowers still run like tops. Mine is out at our place in the country. I upgraded to a 6.5 HP Gold model from a 4 HP the last year they made the 2-cycle engines (sometime in the ’90’s). It is a beast and will cut down about anything with a sharp blade. I’m 68 now and I pay someone to mow for me, but occasionally have to mow the lawn myself. We also pay a guy to cut the 1 1/2 acre area around our country home. We have 72 acres but only cut the part near the house and about 1/2 acre near our waterfront. I need to swap the 6hp for the 4hp the next time I’m out there. The 4 is a lot lighter than my 6 and if I have to cut my own grass then its a lot easier for an old dude.