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(Names changed.) Mary Olson had had a mild heart attack over the weekend, so her grown children and her sisters all arrived within hours at the local hospital, except for her daughter, Lisa. "Since Mom was expected to recover completely, I decided to wait until she was ready to leave, then drive down and help settle her at home," Lisa says. On Thursday afternoon, Lisa arrived at the hospital to find her mother sitting up in bed working a crossword puzzle, her usually perky self. The two, with other relatives, spent the rest of the day together. "Mom seemed fine, and was due to be released on Saturday," Lisa says. "When I left right after dinner, she was asleep so I told the nurse to call me during the evening if she wanted company."

At 8:45 pm, the nurse phoned Lisa, and said that Mary was awake and wanted company. But by the time Lisa arrived at the hospital, some fifteen minutes later, her mother had died from a massive heart attack. The family, of course, was devastated. But they made all the necessary arrangements that families do. A few days after the funeral, Lisa and one of her sisters finished closing up Mary's house, and began loading the trunk of Lisa's car. The women were terribly sad, and perhaps still in a state of shock as well. Their mother was gone! Was she with God? Was she happy? "It was a gray day, both emotionally and weatherwise," Lisa recalls. "Suddenly as we turned around, we saw a man standing behind us." He was about forty years old, slight in build, rather nondescript, without a coat on this raw day. It seemed strange. Although the driveway was gravel, neither of the women had heard approaching footsteps. "Who are you?" Lisa asked.

"I'm your mother's yardman," the man explained. "I cut her grass and do small jobs for her. She sits at the picnic table and visits with me. Perhaps there's a job I can do?"

"Our mother has died," Lisa told him. "Yes, I know," he said calmly.

The women looked at each other. They had never met their mother's yardman, but he seemed capable and pleasant, and the gutters did need cleaning. . . . The yardman agreed, so the women went back into the house. As they were sitting in the living room, they heard a sound, like someone singing. It was the yardman. "Listen!" Lisa said. "He's singing 'Sweet Hour of Prayer.'" The women looked at each other again. It had been their mother's favorite hymn.

"I think he also sang "Amazing Grace," but I cannot be sure of that," Lisa says. "At some point I went to the mailbox, at the front of the property. While walking back to the house, I looked at the roof and saw a light all around the yardman. It wasn't exactly a halo, because it was around his entire body. The day was still dreary, but it could have been a small break in the clouds. . ." Yet the light did not appear to be coming from the sun.

Listening to the stranger's joyful singing, Lisa and her sister felt strangely contented and peaceful, as if there was happiness in this situation as well as sorrow. How coincidental that the yardman would drop by on the very day they needed consolation.

When the yardman finished cleaning the gutters, Lisa paid him. The women were leaving and, concerned that he had no jacket, they offered him a ride into town. "No," he said. "I walk everywhere." And with that comment, he was gone. "I don't mean that he walked away," Lisa says. "I mean he was GONE. He just disappeared. We looked up and down the road, and he was nowhere to be seen."

Another strange happening in this most unusual day. Or were they imagining the significance of these events? Lisa spotted the next door neighbors on their porch, so she and her sister walked over to say goodbye. "Wasn't it fortunate that Mother's yardman came by just now and cleaned out the gutters?" Lisa asked.

The neighbors both had a strange look on their faces. "That was not your mother's yardman," one said. "We have never seen him before today." Lisa's aunt, who had the same yardman as her mother, later agreed. "Our man has never walked anywhere in his life," she concurred. "Everyone knows it."

Then who was the mysterious man? For a while, Lisa ignored her own instincts. "I paid him," she points out, "and I've never heard of an angel taking money, so how could he be one?" That's a point. But as in the Bible, angels often come disguised, and must take on all human attributes or needs, in order to be believable. "Now I think he was an angel and not the regular yardman," Lisa says today. "I think he was there to comfort both my sister and me because we were so very sad about our mother's death." She has never seen the man again, but suspects that he -- and her mother -- watch over her always.

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Sitting on the back porch, arms around my knees
Granny's frying chicken, cooking black eyed peas

Fresh baked corn bread sitting on the shelf
She just smiled when I helped myself

Honey from the beehive in the field out back
Blueberrys from the bushes by the old tool shack

Peach and apple butter with a taste so swell
Fresh-churned butter chilling in the milkhouse well

Finally realize now what I had back then
Give anything to go back there again

Granny's been gone now, ten long years
But I have to smile, even through the tears

So I sit on my back porch, arms around my knees
Dreaming bout chicken and those black eyed peas

Then I make a batch of cornbread and a pitcher of tea
And I drift for a while in those memories...

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yo mama so fat she can sell shade
yo mama so ugly she make the freddy crugar look like jack nicohlson
yo mama so stupid i told her to watch tv and she sat on the tv and whatched the couch
yo mama so poor she hire bums to cut her grass

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One Saturday afternoon, a man was sitting in his lawn chair drinking beer and watching his wife mow the lawn. A neighbor lady was so outraged at this, she came over and shouted at the man, "You should be hung!" To which he calmly replied, "I am. That's why she cuts the grass."

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She grades by feel, that is what she feels like that day. I know of a man who failed her class and received a C for his final grade, and another that missed one series of questions due to minor mistake on the final to get a final average of 78 who also got the C for final grade (all three of us in the same class). What's that all about. No pluses or minuses or extra credit, but if you cut her grass like one guy did in the Spring Semester you can make a few bucks and improve your grade without even trying. Get your hair cut butch, roll up your sleeves, shoot a couple of holes through your mufflers and you got it made with the Mayes. Why is she still here, just get to know the administration before you try to answer that one.

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Cream cheese and jelly on toast: the taste in an old woman's mouth. Sven was hot for the oldies, and he wasn't about to let Eustacia leave without a spitty goodbye. He'd been mowing her lawn for weeks, swigging her gin fizz, discreetly licking the Mentholatum smudge off the rim of her glass. She folded him in yellow-paged history, and all he had to do was cut her grass. But today Sven was in for a surprise. Because today Eustacia's husband woke up early, a little saucy from his nap, clutching Hungarian brass knuckles and wailing: 'Vaffunculo!'" -- Lauren Fink

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Lyrics

My sweet farm girl, she's jolly of my pride
My sweet farm girl, she's jolly of my pride
She knows I know how to keep her satisfied

So early in the morning I cut her grass you bet
So early in the morning I cut her grass you bet
Pull up the hose; I keep her lawn all wet

I close her fire; I shake her ashes down
I close her fire; I shake her ashes down
We eat our breakfast, then we ride on back to town

I keep her garden all free from bugs and weeds
I keep her garden all free from bugs and weeds
I plow her land, and then I sow my seeds

I trim her hedges; I clean out her back yard
I trim her hedges; I clean out her back yard
She loves her daddy because I'm long and hard

Recorded on December 1, 1931 in New York City. Ashley plays guitar and sings, with Gwen Foster on guitar and harmonica. The sexual connotations are rather obvious.

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