The Lawn Mower Hall of Fame Expertease

Welcome to the podcast today. I'm Danno Sullivan and my guest is podcaster Clare Sera, who's going to have a podcast with me on it as a guest. Please welcome to the show, Clare Sera. Fantastic to be here. Danno, you're an expert on the lawnmower. The lawnmower. The lawnmower. And so I thought we could probe your area. What? Of expertise. Oh, spelled wrong? You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong, the podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly. Each podcasode of Expertise brings you the recognized expert in the field, whatever the field happens to be, and whether or not that expert actually knows anything about it.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your podcast guest, Danno Sullivan. And I would just like to say how excited I am to be here as a guest on my own podcast. Danno, you're an expert on the lawnmower. As you know, I'm a big proponent of the lawn. And the biggest thing about the lawn is keeping it moan. Moan, a moan lawn. A moan lawn is a healthy lawn. You'll have to pardon my old English past tense verb, Claire, but of course the lawnmower is an old English device descended from the long mower. Rather like the long boats of Viking times, the lawnmower was originally 300 feet long and powered by oarsmen.

It could cut the grass of a typical suburban lawn in a single swath. I've been very excited to watch a group of Icelandic Vikings swathing your lawn. I'm getting chills just thinking about it. Do we have any depictions of that? Any ancient etchings? Better than that. We have a wonderful display of etchings available on the second floor here at the Lawn Mowing Museum. These are etchings from around the world depicting lawns pre-moan and post-moan as etched by famous etchers from many societies and many periods of history. Do you have any special period that you're interested in? I could give you some of the insider tidbits.

Oh gosh, I am such a fan of 1010. The year 1010. Yes. Oh gosh, yeah. What an exciting time. I just had to clarify because of course that is a mower setting in millimeters and 1010 happens to be kind of an optimum length. What you want, Claire, is the same length under the ground as you have over the ground. Oh, so the root is the same as the above-ground shiny part. You sound like an expert yourself, Claire. The shiny part, or the blade as it's called, ironically because it is of course trimmed by a blade. Now, Danno, there's been a lot of pushback in modern times against a green lawn in a front yard.

Let me just interject there and say by even posing a question like that, you're suggesting that I am pro-lawn and in fact all I am is pro-mower. There's a big difference. Okay. You want a gravel lawn? Sure, go to it. Mower gravel for you is what I say. I see, and of course you're an expert in its history and its invention, which does not mean that you are an expert in its future. Nor in lawns. If you could see my lawn, I think you would side with my wife on who needs to be outside on a Saturday morning. Don't get me started. With the barbecue and the brats and the croquet set.

Look, when we try... And, you know, a basketball area for Teddy and little Lincoln. And a little slab of concrete. Speaking of which, we try to mow our heavy slabs of peat. There's just nothing left, you know. I'm sorry? Hmm. Okay. Ironically, Claire, the mower museum in Indianapolis is placed on a pure concrete pad. Because of zoning reasons, we do not have our own lawn. This is a purely business district, and you can only have concrete, steel, and you're allowed to have kind of a stink coming out of your building. Wow, that's very interesting. Well, I just find it sad that you cannot have a beautiful green lawn, but the abattoir next door can be throwing offal and innards out the window, and we can't have a green lawn.

Dano, I can't help but wonder if this was a little bit of the man sticking it to the lawnmower by thinking that they're maybe forcing you towards having what we all know put the lawnmower truly out of business, and that is artificial turf. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, gosh. Artificial turf. We have developed an artificial mower that works beautifully on the artificial turf. It's made by Fisher-Price. Yes, of course. It's three feet tall and has a round plastic dome, and when you push it, three little multicolored balls inside bounce up and down. And this does a beautiful job doing an artificial mow on the artificial turf.

If you don't mind me just asking, what do the bouncing balls bring to the experience? You know, mowing the lawn, Claire, is a tradition as old as America's suburbs. Yes. And when folks get out there, even on an artificial lawn, they want the sensation, the feeling, the scent, the sound of the lawnmower. With no mower, the three marbles are bouncing up and down, ricocheting off the plastic dome, creating a rat-a-tat-tat effect, not unlike the original Wankel rotary engines that were used on the Max Bayer model 2022 from 1910, as developed right next door to the Wright Brothers studio in Dayton, Ohio.

Dano, do you mind if I ask you the question that is coming in live chatted? Oh, how exciting. We have some true mower fans. Yeah. They're wondering if the grass lobby, you know, as we know, is very powerful in Washington. And if it was perhaps that the grass lobby got mixed up with the grass lobby. And if we could maybe just get back to mowing our own grass and leaving that, you know, funny grass off to the side of the highway where it can grow wild and free. Claire, I have decriminalized marijuana. Huh? Oh, I see. I didn't quite understand how your plan works.

We here in Indianapolis at the Lawn Mowing Museum of Indianapolis, we are very old-fashioned in our thinking and our ways. I love it. And, you know, this whole legalized marijuana thing, even though it's called grass. Nope. Ixnay on the eagle eyes lay. Well, isn't it true that you at your company did try to start mowing some of the other grass? Mow it. Mow it. Chop it down. Get it out. Throw it away. Come on, folks. Chop it down. Let's burn that stuff up. Well, I think that by burning it, you might actually encounter some new ideas about how you feel about this grass.

Let me give you some new ideas. If you want to get high in quotation marks, let's start those lawnmowers up. Let's get out there in those lawns. Let's cut down that grass. Let's roll it up in those thin papers that you can buy at 7-Eleven. Wait. Let's sell those to school children. Let's mite those little babies up. If you want to get really high, it's a sky blue suit and a rainbow tie. Roll your own, baby. Roll your own. I just don't think that that's the case. There's raspberries, strawberry, pretty red wine. Absolutely. I endorse any of this. Besides tasting good, you're going to have a great time.

Roll your own. We have a lot of miners who listen to this podcast, so I'm just going to have to cut you off there. And thank you so much for all your information on the invention of the lawnmower. My pleasure, Claire. My pleasure, Claire. And ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to thank my guest, Claire Sarah, for hosting today's podcast and having me on as a guest. Claire, thank you. Thank you, Dan. The Expertise, spelled wrong, podcast is free. And, like the Amish, all are welcome. Be sure to sign up for our email announcements at funnypodcast.com. And follow us in your favorite podcast app, like the expert podcast listener we know you are.

Originally, as I mentioned, with the lawnmower, it was propelled by man. Sweaty, big, bicep Vikings. The oarsmen, the oarsmen. Do you have an etching that I could look at of anything like that? Of those sweaty, muscled, lantern-jawed oarsmen? You know, purely for historical reasons, of course. Absolutely.