CARING FOR OUR PIECE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM : LEAF-BLOWER BAN MAY BE BLESSING IN DISGUISE.

Byline: Dennis McCarthy 

There was a time in this country - sometime during the Eisenhower administration, as I recall - when real men mowed their own lawns, raked their own leaves and did their own edging on the weekends - or made their teen-age sons do it to earn an allowance.

You could walk out your front door any Saturday morning, look up and down the block of your neighborhood, and see fathers and sons taking care of their 50-by-75-foot piece of the American Dream.

If an elderly couple or a widow lived on the block, a couple of fathers would send their teen-age boys over to mow their lawns and rake the leaves for them. They never had to ask. It was just done.

The people with big homes up on the hill had gardeners. We had push mowers, or if we were really living the American Dream, a Sears Craftsman power mower.

Roll one of those babies out of the garage and you were king of the block. Nobody ever complained about the noise.

Now, the same sons of those middle-class neighborhoods of the '50s and '60s are shelling out $50 or $60 a month for a crew of ``mow-blow-and-go'' gardeners to do the work for them.

They show up and attack our lawns once a week like a company of Marines storming the beach. They're here and gone in 15 minutes - off to storm another lawn for 60 bucks a month.

This allows us to take a nap or watch the ballgame without our wives complaining that the yard looks like a vacant lot, so why don't we get off our duffs and clean the place up?

Because, we lie, we are the entrepreneurs of the '90s. We are providing jobs. It's all part of the trickle-down theory. We're simply keeping the Reagan years alive, and doing our part for the economy.

It has absolutely nothing to do with being fat and lazy.

We shouldn't be chastised. We should be congratulated for stimulating the economy, and spreading the wealth around.

Now, pass me the TV clicker, please. Got any pretzels or popcorn to go with that beer?

Oh, there are still a few real men doing their own lawns, but their ranks are rapidly depleting. Give it a generation or two, and Sears won't even be selling lawn mowers anymore. They'll go the way of typewriters and Slinkys - into the time capsule for our great-great-great grandkids to mull over.

My neighbors Charlie and Joe still do their own mowing, raking and edging, but most of my other neighbors are like me. They subcontract the job out, and go play golf or tennis Saturday morning.

I got to thinking about this shift in the traditional middle-class gardening work force when I read where L.A. City Councilwoman Rita Walters thinks this proposed citywide ban on the use of leaf blowers by gardeners is an elitist issue, pitting the rich against the poor.

If the blowers go, it will take gardeners longer to do their work, thus they will have to charge more money for their time. This may price a big chunk of the middle class out of hiring a gardener, thus taking us back to the Eisenhower years when only the rich had gardeners.

I'm not sure I buy Walters' reasoning, but she is right about this being an elitist measure.

My father, for example, thinks I'm an elitist pig for having a gardener in the first place. He always did his own mowing, raking and edging, and my lawn in the '90s doesn't require any more work than his lawn did in the '60s.

So, what do I need a gardener for? Get off your duff and do it yourself, he says. What, you're too tired and stressed out to mow a lawn?

You're working harder during the week than your father did, so you deserve a break from raking and edging on Saturday mornings? No way. Forget it.

Hey, Charles Atlas, instead of paying $60 a month for a gardener, and another $100 a month to work out in that fancy private gym, put the money in an IRA and go work out with a push mower, my old man says.

That'll get your heart rate up faster than a Stairmaster.

Hard to argue with the old man, especially when he's right. So, as much as I'm all for the working man getting his fair share, maybe the Los Angeles Gardeners Association should think twice about launching a letter-writing campaign to convince Mayor Richard Riordan to veto the leaf blowing ban approved by the City Council this week.

It could wake up the lazy sons of the middle-class neighborhoods of the '50s and '60s to finally start listening to their fathers again.

To get off their duffs and mow, rake and edge their own lawns like their fathers used to do.