This newsletter is delivered to you every other Thursday and hopefully provides you with thought-provoking content about the mundane, wacky, and weird. I will be writing until the 75th edition. If you know someone who may enjoy the newsletter, you can share it here.
For many people, a perfectly manicured lawn with a house in the suburbs is part of the American dream. This desire has made lawns the most irrigated crop in the country, outpacing corn three times over. They take up 2% of the land area of the continental United States. How and why have lawns become an American obsession?
Lawns emerged from the British elite in the 17th century. Lawns remained a small niche part of estates, until the Palace of Versailles. Versailles took a perfectly manicured lawn to the next level and people took notice. One of those people was Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were fanboys for European landscaping. Jefferson visited the Palace of Versailles and was inspired by the lawns and wanted one for his Monticello estate.
The lawn craze hopped the pond and became popular among elites and southern plantation owners. A lawn flaunted that a person was so wealthy they didn’t need to use their land for farming. The owners would have peasants (or slaves) use scythes to cut the grass. Needless to say, it was so time-intensive and costly that only the wealthiest people could afford to have a lawn.
The first lawnmower was invented in 1830 and improved greatly over the next 100+ years until the gas power motor was invented. Here is a look at the evolution of lawnmowers:
Owning a lawnmower meant you could mow the lawn in an afternoon, instead of having peasants spend all day with a scythe chopping at the grass.
The popular power rotary mower was widely adopted. According to Virginia Jenkins in The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession, power mower production before World War II was under 35,000 mowers per year. In 1951, it ballooned to over 1.2 million mowers annually.
The suburbs exploded after WWII with the help of the G.I. Bill and white flight. The lawnmower technology and the G.I. bill help explain the when of American lawns but do not answer the why.
A manicured lawn became a physical manifestation of the American dream. The lawn was the first impression passerby’s and neighbors had of your home. A well-kept lawn suggested a well-kept life inside the home.
In 1966, when CBS telecast the Masters Golf Tournament in color for the first time, TV viewers could see the perfectly manicured, wall-to-wall vivid green color of the Augusta National Golf Club, whose beautiful Bermuda grass exemplified the ideal lawn. "Everywhere golf courses exhibit magnificent turf, often through 12 months of the year,” Sports Illustrated asserted in 1966, “and having seen what is possible, millions of homeowners feel compelled to go and do likewise."
Masculinity and the lawn are intertwined. Part of it was from successful advertising from the post-WWII era. Here is an ad for Reo mowers in the 1950s.
Artificial grass
Many people are switching to artificial grass to save money on maintenance. On average, lawn care can cost homeowners around $2,000 a year. Artificial grass can cost a few thousand dollars up front, but saves you time and money in the long run. Artificial grass has gotten a lot better since it was invented in the 1960s. In 1964, it was called “ChemGrass” by Monsanto but got rebranded as Astroturf. Regardless of the improvements, it still has a few fundamental issues:
Injury - If you are planning on being active in your yard. Studies find that artificial grass increases the risk of injury.
Heat - In the summer the plastic heats up and can get 60 degrees hotter (!) than the air temperature. Often times the hottest part of a city is an artificial turf sports field.
Environment - Some bill it as more environmentally friendlier than grass because it doesn’t need water or fertilizers. However, it kills the soil health below it and doesn’t provide any nutrients for animals on the surface. Finally, when it needs to be replaced, it often doesn’t get properly recycled.
The environmental impacts of real grass are no joke either. The fertilizers and pesticides used to keep grass green have caused havoc on local sewage systems. In a desperate attempt to have a green lawn, many people are dousing their lawns in green paint.
In recent years there has been a pushback against lawns, particularly in dry climates like California. A few years ago California paid people to switch from a traditional lawn to a drought-resistant yard. The campaign was somewhat of a success. However, the drought has gotten worse and this past Tuesday the “State Water Resources Control Board” voted to ban watering “ornamental grass” except for individual homes. Mandating individual homeowners to stop watering their lawns was politically not feasible.
I do not own a house and am not entirely against having a lawn, despite all of its drawbacks. I understand the prettiness of a green lawn cascading down from a house. My American dream is not a white picket fence, a green lawn, and 2.4 kids. It may include a house and a couple of kids, but it will have a lot more going on than a slab of grass.
Chris Rock - Job vs Career
At this point, I feel lucky enough to be in “career mode” or at least where there doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day for all that I want to work on.
Is poor nutrition a demand or supply problem?
“No Stupid Questions” podcasts tackle the long-held belief that food deserts are the primary cause of poor nutrition in America. They discuss a breakthrough study concluding that nutrition is a demand issue and not a supply (food desert) issue.
🤔 One thought-provoking question from the podcast “How, where, and when, do people —or better, a given person—learn to eat nutritiously?”
Pic of the Week
This was the first Bay to Breakers since 2019 and it felt like San Francisco was back! Officially billed as a 7.5-mile race from the bay (east side of SF) to the break (ocean) and has been happening every May for over 100 years. Unofficially, there are thousands of people dressed in wild outfits parading the streets.