I started mowing our yard when I was about ten. When other neighbors saw me out doing it, they asked if I'd cut theirs. Dad was okay with it and let me use his Lawn-Boy. Later, I had to supply the gas and the oil (two stroke engines on Lawn-Boy mowers needed oil mixed with gas). The neighbors paid more than my parents paid, so I liked that.

The next year, I kept the little business going cutting grass. Now I had some people contacting me to mow some vacant lots. Paid really well. Soon there was more of that. Some of those lots were too far away from home to just push the mowing stuff to them, and Dad would haul me and the equipment to the lots. A couple of the owners of the lots lived out-of-state, so I learned how to send out bills, cash checks, etc. I already had a small savings account at the bank and used that with the mowing business.

The following year, I got requests to maintain some cemetery lots. The city usually maintained everything, but these people wanted something better. I started doing that. The cemetery was fairly close to home, but maintaining the lots also involved watering and fertilizing the grass. Dad had to get involved again since now I was dragging hoses and watering devices around. Almost none of these cemetery lot owners lived locally, so now I was sending bills all over the nation.

As the cemetery lots I maintained looked tremendous compared to the usual city-maintained stuff, the word got around and I nearly had more lots than I could handle. I was banking a lot of money for a kid my age. In the summer, this was a full time job, but when winter came, I was out of income.

Since it was so seasonal, and at 15, I was getting "too good" for this business, I let my little brother have it and went to work at a local grocery. I had made enough money that I went out and purchased a used 1954 Harley Davidson. I was about to turn 16 when I bought the Harley, so for a few months I would only ride it to school. That was all that was allowed until I turned 16 and had a proper license.

My brother followed my steps with the mowing business and did well. Later, he also thought he was "too good" to be mowing lawns, and my Dad took over the business. It was a gold mine for him, even though he just did it in evenings and weekends. He had a full time job, so the mowing kept him going.

Dad kept that business going for decades, even needing to hire a CPA to run the taxes, etc. He would hire the grandkids, often paying them too much, but they were all able to have jobs.

That business kept going until February of 2024, when Dad passed unexpectedly of a heart attack. He was 94. The business stopped at that time. It had been started in 1964.