I don’t like to mow the lawn. In fact, I generally don’t like any process where you have to work hard just to get back to the starting point just to do it all over again in a few days.
You could put things like laundry and vacuuming and exercising under the same flag.
It all has a certain mouse-on-a-wheel feel to it.
That said, I understand that for every crime there comes a punishment.
If I don’t cut the grass, my wife will politely remind me.
After that, the reminders continue but the politeness fades.
Finally, she gets to the point where she says something like, “Well, I guess I have a few minutes in between working, keeping the house and raising your children so I suppose I can start on the yard.�
Then I cut the grass.
I may not like it all that much but at least the punishment fits the crime and it modifies the behavior to her desired results which is, after all, the ultimate goal.
I mean, I wouldn’t want to go to jail just for not cutting the grass.
All of which brings us to a Pennsylvania State Appeals court and the case of Shawna Johnson verses the good people of Wilkins Township.
Apparently Ms. Johnson also doesn’t like to cut the grass but, unlike me, she stayed true to her beliefs for a good part of the summers of 2002 and 2003.
That drew the ire of the neighbors and eventually Wilkins Township officials (that’s outside Pittsburgh) and they went to court to give Ms. Johnson a 30-day jail term.
Johnson’s lawyer called it a “very odd case� because (1) the wording of the ordinance was unusual and (2) someone was going to jail for negligent lawn care.
This week, in a ruling expected to have absolutely no significance anywhere in the legal community, the Appeals court found that the Wilkins Township law did not specifically call for jail time for the un-mowed even though state law permits it.
The 30-day sentence was tossed out, a victory for the property maintenance challenged everywhere.
Well, everywhere except the Bremner house. There’s another sheriff at work there.