AND FINALLY . . .
U.S Lawnmower Man presented with Stihl chainsaw
The Washington Times reports how a month after Charleston, South Carolina resident Chris Cox was spotted mowing the lawn around the Lincoln Memorial during the U.S government's federal shutdown, he will return to the monument to accept a chainsaw and roughly $1,800 collected by a charity group’s online fundraiser.
Chris Cox, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the grounds around which he took it upon himself to maintain during the US government's federal shutdown
"We like to do something for the person who did something good,” Kendall Almerico, founder of the group Crowd It Forward told the paper. “In Chris‘ case we thought it would be really cool to get him a riding lawn mower. We got in touch with Chris and he said, ‘Yeah, that’s great.’ But he’s a woodcutter by profession and what he really needs is a new chainsaw.”
Mr. Cox was first spotted at the memorial in early October pushing his mower, with a blue and white South Carolina flag billowing behind him. The chainsaw artist told reporters he had hoped to inspire others to help clean the landscape around national monuments and memorials, which had been left unattended after the federal government shutdown closed parks and prevented grounds crews from doing their work.
“The ‘lawnmower man’ put smiles on faces, but once the government came back together I thought it was important to kind of just slide into the shadows,” Mr. Cox is quoted as saying.
Mr. Almerico said the online fundraiser had collected roughly $1,800 to pay for the chainsaw, but when the Stihl company offered to donate one, Mr. Almerico’s group decided to give Mr. Cox the money to help pay off any bills or outstanding parking tickets he received while mowing. “When I was working 10 or 12 hours a day, it wasn’t hard to let the meter creep up,” Mr. Cox said. “I finally figured out where to park, but a lot of those meters, you put in 25 cents and get eight minutes!”
Mr Cox hopes his time in the spotlight was not in vain, and that he could inspire other people to volunteer when circumstances require it. “I can bring the lawnmower man back up if needed, but anybody can be a lawnmower man,” he said. “I wanted everybody to be able to step up and just make it happen.”
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