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Mower power to him

Mike McCall rides high among the Lawn of the Month wanna-bes in his subdivision thanks to his pride and joy: a $17,000 John Deere tractor.

RIVERVIEW - It should be said that Mike McCall has an exceptional yard.

It is such a nice yard that Mike, when giving directions to the house, stopped short of providing the street number because it should have been obvious which of the homes in his homogeneous middle-class subdivision belongs to him.

More specifically, it should have been apparent which of the neighborhood's lawns belongs to a $17,000 lawn mower named Sampson.

Mike is basically a regular guy. He doesn't own a lawn service or, for that matter, a large lawn. He is 34 and has a regular job at an investment firm. He lives in a normal-sized house on a quarter-acre lot. He has a normal-looking family: wife Kimberly; sons Wesley, 8; Lance, 4; and Jesse, 2.

It's not unusual for folks to have big lawn mowers these days. Entry-level John Deeres are selling briskly at Home Depots, as if the same societal force that craves sport utility vehicles expanded and forged the lawn tractor market.

But that doesn't quite explain Mike McCall and Sampson.

Sampson is so big, it doesn't fit in Mike's back yard - it can't squeeze through the 5-foot gap between the landscape bed and the neighbor's hedge. He can mow the front with it in about 21/2 swipes. Sampson is so heavy that Mike has to let some air out of the tires to avoid leaving ruts in the yard. Sampson is so beloved that when Mike punched the accelerator instead of the brake and rammed the bumper of his Acura, his heart lurched in concern - for the mower.

The force that got hold of Mike is something larger than whatever makes people buy Chevy Suburbans. He can explain his reasoning - it's an argument he rehearsed at some length with his wife - but when he stands in his driveway with his hulking green John Deere X595, with its 24-horsepower, liquid-cooled diesel engine, reason breaks down and he is left with this:

"Man," he says, a look on his face like new love, "this just really does it for me."

Mike remembers the conversation at the farm supply store this way:

Salesman: Oh, man, you've got to check this out.

Mike: Dude, that's like a lawn mower on steroids.

Salesman: These things are amazing.

Mike: Oh, man, I've got to have one.

It started with, or in spite of, a Snapper push mower. Mike remembers it well.

"I hated it. We had a yard of crappy grass. Kind of like that one over there," he says, pointing to the lesser lawn of a lesser man. "I'm 10 years old and the mower's as big as I am. It's not self-propelled. I'm fighting it, I'm getting hives from the grass and the heat, missing big patches, the yard looked like a cornfield."

When he was grown, he got a Craftsman mower - self-propelled. In the next eight years he got five more. They all broke.

After the last trip to Sears, in August 1998, he made a mental estimate of what he'd spent on repairs and upgrades and decided he should have bought the $900 John Deere JX75 6-horsepower, self-propelled, walk-behind mower in the first place, so he corrected the error.

The JX75 never faltered. Some kind of seed sprouted in Mike's brain.

Over time, John Deere insinuated itself into his wardrobe, crept inside his house, became part of the decor. Now his sons wear shirts that say: "My Daddy Drives a John Deere." The oldest sleeps in a John Deere tractor bed with working headlights.

In the summer of 2000, Mike bought the LT155 lawn tractor. He calls it Mabel. He still uses it almost every weekend, for the corners Sampson can't reach.

The next year, he brought in a 1942 John Deere H tractor, which leaked gas and stunk up his garage. That one is Stinky Pete. Eunice came in July 2002, a 1954 John Deere 60.

Stinky Pete and Eunice are primarily ornamental. He fusses over them in the garage.

So when the brochure for the X595 hit the Southern Farm Supply store, the guys there thought of Mike. The tractor wasn't out yet, but Mike studied its every specification.

He left the brochure lying around the house. He brought it along on the family vacation.

He is not embarrassed to say that he begged.

His wife thought, well, at least it's not a motorcycle.

More on the motorcycle later.

Kimberly: "I made the mistake of mowing one time. Like to have caused a divorce."

Mike, to Kimberly: "But tell her what speed setting you had it on the entire bloody time."

Kimberly:

Mike: "Slow."

Slow!

As fine a yard as it is, Mike fears it will never be the South Pointe subdivision Lawn of the Month.

At a recent homeowners association meeting, two of his friends sought to pre-emptively disqualify Mike's yard from the proposed competition. They insisted that Mike is overequipped.

"Meanies," Mike says.

The neighborhood wisecracking intensified when Time magazine, seeking a "backyard baron" for a story on surging lawn-tractor sales, found Mike. The story points out that status-conscious suburbanites are buying John Deeres to impress their neighbors, even paying someone else to ride them. Mike does not want to be in the same paragraph as people like that.

He takes Sampson out for its eight-minute romp through his St. Augustine grass twice a week, Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings.

When he cranks the machine, it roars like a jet. The deck lifts from the wind created by the 62-inch blades. To him it is an awesome sound.

He doesn't break a sweat or get dirt on his ankles. Sampson has power steering, cruise control, four-wheel drive, front and mid hydraulics and something called "PTO" that Mike's really excited about. It has a cup holder and a power outlet for a CD player. Occasionally, while mowing, Mike smokes a cigar.

If this were about convenience, he would likely hire a lawn service. For $17,000, he could hire a lawn service for several years. Mention that to him. See what happens.

"Let me tell you my theory on lawn services," he says, visibly irritated. "Hiring a lawn service is like having sex with multiple partners."

His wife tries to interrupt him, but he is undeterred.

"You think I'd let some guy go and cut some diseased yard and then come over here and expose mine to that? I don't think so."

Mike's grass is dense and dark green. It has the appropriate level of what is called thatch, thanks to some of Sampson's accessory implements that help him "dethatch" and "aerate" to keep the roots happy. He can pluck a blade of this grass and show how straight the cut is. It is free of fungus and disease, appropriately hydrated and pest-protected and nourished. He brings it coffee grounds from Starbucks for the brown patches, which are rare.

To show an example of a brown patch, he has to point to another yard, in a direction we won't specify in the interest of neighborhood peace.

"This one," he says, "is driving me berserk."

Mike's eyes often wander the street; he can't help it. Several of the yards have been improved with Sampson's PTO-driven tiller. There's a yard around the corner so fine that Mike likes to visit it, just gazing. Then there are the other yards.

"Hey, brainiac," he says to another house where no one is home, "trim the weeds."

Sometimes, driving to work, Mike will pass a construction site or a dewy field, and he will watch the guys on the big tractors.

Write my report, he will think. Let me mow today.

He's a certified treasury professional at Franklin Templeton, which means he manages North American cash management banking relationships for mutual fund complexes, which means he works at a desk. From there, cutting the grass is a simple and beautiful thing.

He keeps a tiny scale model of his X595 not far from the pictures of his wife and kids. When he has a hard day at work, he calls his wife. "I'm coming home to mow."

He has been known to mow in the dark. When his mother-in-law visited and the kids got riled, he was out mowing past 9 p.m. When he argues with his wife, mowing soothes him. Good thing Sampson has halogen headlights, like a car.

He has a longing for a lost way of life he was never part of. His Daddy never drove a John Deere, and neither did his grandfather.

But his grandfather did own orange groves, and Mike used to run through them as a kid, shooting mistletoe out of the trees with his BB gun. His dad, a mechanical engineer, liked to tinker with things, but Mike was intimidated about getting his hands too greasy until after his dad died.

Now he's grown, both parents are gone, and the orange groves he used to play in have long been sold and subdivided. He has learned to change his own oil and fix things when they break. He likes to dig and primp in his quarter-acre until it is the proudest, greenest little patch in the subdivision. He'd like to have something larger someday.

His sons are too young to mow. They all have John Deere pedal-tractor tricycles, but they have yet to experience the joy of pushing a rattling, stinking lawn mower. Maybe they never will.

They love to sit in the adjustable high-back lumbar seat, and they love it when their dad hitches up their wagon and pulls them down the street. But when they get too close, with their dirty hands or their swinging feet, Mike can't help but cringe.

"Why are you touching the key, Lance?"

"Honey, don't let him kick his feet like that. . . . Honey?"

Someday, he wants to leave them some big green tractors.

But he's going to hold the keys as long as he can.

E-mail from Mike: Do you know when the story will print yet?

Times response: You can read it while you mow.

Mike: Thanks - actually I'll be riding a motorcycle. . . . My Harley is in!!

Kelley Benham can be reached at 727 893-8848 or benham@sptimes.com