My husband and I live on a small hill. Because of this, we’ve always figured our yard had to be cut with a push mower, but recently we needed to hire a lawn service. Three guys showed up. One maneuvered the weed whacker. One swung a leaf blower. And one drove the riding lawn mower — a zero-turn, wide-cut machine that hugged the hills like a sure-footed mountain goat. I watched with glee, nearly jumping up and down, almost clapping my hands together, wanting to ask if I could take the mower for a spin. I thought, “If we buy one of those zero-turn, wide-cut, mountain-goat mowers, I can cut the grass too.” I used to ride my father’s mower like it was a newly-tamed mustang, and I was a free-wheeling cowgirl.

I was eight years old when I started mowing the 2.2 acres that was our yard, a ponderosa compared to the narrow city lot we moved from when I was five. My dad pIopped me on his 1960s Snapper Comet and taught me how to start, shift, and stop it.

I wasn’t to cut the large rocks that grew behind the barn and garage because they ground lawn mower blades like cowpokes chomping chewing tobacco. I got careless once, and Dad needed to replace the blade. I got careless a second time, and I bent something more serious on the lawn mower. But dad was an excellent mechanic, so he ordered parts and fixed the Snapper.

My father, who could be impatient in many things, was surprisingly calm about my attempt to mow rocks. But after he had to fix the lawn mower a second time, I scoured the back field for rocks, like a ranch hand on the lookout for a stray calf. We lived in southeastern Wisconsin, and thousands of years ago some geological force seeded the earth with large rocks, and every spring several of them would manage to bloom. When the rocks grew too tall, my father would dig them out, place them in a small trailer, and haul them to an overgrown field with a miniature tractor not much bigger than the Snapper.

When I cut the hill by the barn I pretended I was riding a bucking bronco in a rodeo. Because I was so light, I would stand and lean toward the hill to keep the mower’s four wheels on the ground, defying its urge to throw me. I conquered that hill — the only thrill in our otherwise flat yard.

Today, placing an eight-year-old child on a riding lawn mower to cut the grass by herself might be considered child endangerment, but I loved riding the red-and-white Comet, turning in tighter and tighter squares until the whole yard was clipped. No one seemed to think it was unusual — not my mother, not the neighbors, and not me. Besides our Snapper Comet, manufactured in the late sixties, was a pony compared to the muscular draft-horse riding lawn mowers of today.

When my father and mother moved to Tucson in 1977, they didn’t take the Snapper Comet with them. No need to cut the desert sands. My parents divorced in 1983, but my father remained in Tucson. After I married and had children, my father returned to Wisconsin for a couple of weeks every summer. He visited me, other relatives, and friends.

Years later on one of my father’s visits to Wisconsin, he found the same model as our 1960s Snapper Comet at a garage sale and bought it. I didn’t ask him why he bought a riding lawn mower to take home to Tucson, where he lived at an airpark without a blade of grass. But he did have a big garage, so he had plenty of space to store it.

But I looked at the Comet and remembered my bronco riding on the hill by the barn — a hill that seems so small now. I wondered if my father looked at that Comet and thought about teaching his daughters to mow the lawn. I wondered if he thought about the 2.2 acres and the farmhouse where his children mostly grew up, a time when we were all together, before several moves and a divorce separated all the things he held dear.

So now, my husband and I have a riding lawn mower savings account. Next spring we’re buying a zero-turn, wide-cut machine that hugs the hills like a mountain goat. I’m going to learn how to operate it. I’m going to cut the hills — at least once. There will be some who say I should stay off the draft horse. But my father, if he were still alive, wouldn’t be one of them. He’d tell me to hop on up. He’d teach me how to start, shift, and stop it. He’d help me shout, “Yippie-i-oh, Yippie-i-ay! Rawhide!”

[This personal essay was published in the April/May 2023 issue of Our Wisconsin. Last year and this year, the editors asked for submissions on the theme “Lessons Learned from Mom” in honor of Mother’s Day. Our Wisconsin is a print-only magazine. Happy Mother’s Day to everyone who mothers someone.]

Mom taught us to think about how our actions affected other people. My sister and I were about 5 and 6 the first time I remember Mom delivering this lesson.

We lived in rural Franklin, Wisconsin, a mile north of the Racine County border. Sometimes Mom shopped at a small, independent grocery store. It was nearby, and she liked the store’s butcher shop.

On an autumn day around 1965, Mom loaded us into the car for a trip to the local store, which my sister and I relished. The vibrant-colored penny candy located by the checkout counter made our mouths water. Our pockets normally jingled with coins from our piggy banks, but Halloween was creeping up, so Mom had nixed buying sweets. “You’ll soon have plenty of candy,” she said. “Leave your money home.” We grumbled but left the house with empty pockets.

The store was old-fashioned compared to the supermarket where Mom usually shopped. At the supermarket, we had to stay with Mom, so we didn’t get lost. At the local store, we could roam. Mom could either see or hear us from anywhere in the store.

Mom walked to the back of the store to talk to the butcher. My sister and I remained near the candy. We yearned for Life Savers.

While Mom talked to the butcher, our chance arrived. The cashier left the counter while other shoppers browsed the aisles. I grabbed a roll of Life Savers and stuffed it into my pocket. “We’ll share them,” I whispered to my sister.

Mom finished shopping and paid the cashier. The pilfered goods rested in my pocket. My sister and I didn’t attempt to eat them in the backseat on the way home. Mom had something akin to eyes in the back of her head.

After returning home, Mom put groceries away in the kitchen, and my sister and I sat in the family room, opening the Life Savers. A debate about favorite flavors, eclipsed caution. Mom heard us arguing and appeared in the doorway connecting the kitchen to the family room.

“Where did you get those?” Her voice squashed our argument and dread rendered us speechless. We knew that she knew.

“Did you pay for those?” she asked.

We shook our heads. Lying to Mom wouldn’t work. She’d call the store to check.

“Get a nickel from your bank.” She glared at us. “You’re returning the candy, paying for it, and apologizing to the owner.”

The words, apologize to the owner, were the harshest part of the punishment. The butcher, a muscular man, owned the store. He wore a white apron splattered with blood. He chopped meat into chunks with sharp knives. Would he be holding a big knife when my sister and I had to stand before him and admit we robbed him? Would he yell at us?

Driving back to the store, Mom painted various scenarios, hoping we’d absorb what she said. She wanted us to understand the far-reaching effects our seemingly insignificant 5-cent theft might cause.

“You didn’t just steal from a store—you stole from the owner, a person.”

I hadn’t thought about that.

“He has a wife and children. If people steal from him, he can’t pay his bills. His family will go hungry.”

I pictured his starving children.

“He won’t be able to pay his employees, and their families will go hungry.”

I pictured more starving children. Guilt joined my apprehension.

“You stole from him, his family, his employees.”

I pictured a line of angry people.

“If he doesn’t make money, his store will close. His customers will be unhappy.”

Mom’s talk continued all the way to the store. I don’t remember what the butcher said to us, but he wasn’t holding a knife and he didn’t yell.

I never shoplifted again. When my 7^th grade friends wanted to steal gum from a drugstore, I refused to go with them. I remembered Mom’s lesson—I wouldn’t just be stealing a pack of gum.

Mom applied this lesson to other situations, compelling us to be mindful of people’s feelings, explaining thoughtless behavior hurts people. But the hidden gem in her moral? We learned humanity.

[Essay appears here as it was submitted.]