It sputtered a bit, coughed, and slowed to a low chug.

     I said something that probably put another black mark by my name in Heaven's's big book (I must have a whole chapter for myself by now), and shut down the lawnmower.

     I wiggled a wire, tightened a fuel line, and scraped clear the breather.

     A bead of sweat dropped from my forehead to the aluminum deck of the ancient Lawnboy as I gripped the starter cord and yanked hard.

     A few black marks later, and I was on the phone calling in the top gun, the ace fixer, the one man I can count on to repair absolutely anything on the face of this earth.

     "Hey dad, how ya doin?"

     It's a 21-inch, two-stroke Lawnboy. It's the lightest chopper on four wheels because what isn't made out of aluminum is plastic. I've tried other mowers, big ungainly self-propelled monsters, dainty little chord-severing electrics and even a rider, but this little Lawnboy has been the nimblest and easiest to use machine I have ever encountered.

     But it's main attribute has been its indestructibility.

     I tend to be hard on machines.

     Like the time I developed a new combination of oil and gas which I thought would improve the efficiency of the engine. It started just fine, but then the world disappeared. After I stepped choking out of the cloud I found my neighbor smiling at me. "Got her a bit rich there eh?"

     And I've also tried to mow things that really shouldn't be mowed - like tree limbs and rocks and metal pipes and garbage bags and dead birds and the occasional slow-moving squirrel. I  believe this assortment of unique mulchings may have led to the unusual kink in the drive shaft.

     I understand that's a bad thing for a lawnmower.

     It's now in my dad's basement, its innards laid bare - spread open like a heart transplant patient.

     But I don't hold much hope this time. I think it's time has come.

     And maybe that's not a bad thing. Maybe it deserves a final rest.

     Maybe somewhere in a place where there are plains of verdant grass, crisp, but not wet, shaggy, but not too long. Somewhere where the ground is smooth and flat and free of holes. Where there are no stones or sticks. Somewhere . . . somewhere. . .