"Do you have a wife?"

::mood:: must. take. shower.
::music:: Meet In The Middle, from the album Greatest Hits by Diamond Rio

I could barely hear him over the roar of the engine I sat on. I really should be wearing earplugs these days. Too much loud noise is going to leave me deaf at thirty-five. But so far, I haven't really worried about it! I'm sure I should...

I turn the blades off and lower the engine to idle speed; something a little more suitable for conversation, yet not quite turning it off and stopping the task at hand.

Afixing the parking brake on this mammoth of a mower, I jump off and take two steps over to where he stood, an old man; not a day under eighty years old; and not one to be moving all that fast either. He thinks he should still be out there, mowing his own yard. But his wife wont hear of it. Which is where I come in.

Moving closer to him, I hear what it is he's saying. He's asking me something in a strong, steady voice out-of-sync with his feeble body.

"Do you have a wife?" he asks.

"Oh, no," I say, "not yet at least!" I can't hold back a smile.

Then, I notice him removing a jacknife from his pants pocket. A small thing, the blade is worn even shorter from obvious years of use, somehow keeping rythm with the whole appearance of this old man.

Opening the knife, he reaches out to take hold of the blooms born by one of his many rose bushes planted in front of his house.

"Well, when you do get a wife," he examines one flower, and then another, "you be sure and get her lots of flowers. There's nothing that will make a girl happier."

By this time he's holding two of the finest rose buds in his hand.

"Is that what you're doing now?" I ask. More to just make conversation rather than out of any genuine curiosity. "Are you going to take a few inside for your wife?"

I'll never forget his response:

"I'm gonna take her a whole half dozen!" he said emphatically, almost proudly! And like an energetic boy, he went on to the back yard to finish looking for four more of the finest roses he could find. Almost as if he were nineteen all over again and still romancing his intended.

When I get old, I want to be like Harmon.