What Part is That?

Beth Madden, of Seattle, Washington submitted the following conversation to “Life in These United States”:

I came home to find my husband sitting on the couch watching TV.

“I thought you were going to mow the lawn,” I said.

“I’m waiting on a part,” he replied.

“What part is that?”

“The part of me that wants to do it”.

That conversation is reprised in a variety of different ways not just across the U.S. but around the world, although the chore of mowing the lawn is primarily or mostly American. In many parts of the world mowing the lawn is not likely something to be argued about. Only in America is lawn care more obsessively a part of suburban living while much of the world is probably oblivious to the idea of actually watering, let alone care so much for how the front and back yard grass look.

 “In a 2005 NASA-sponsored study, it was estimated that the area covered by lawns in the United States to be about 128,000 square kilometres (49,000 sq. miles), making it the nation's largest irrigated crop by area. [1] Lawn care is thus a popular business in the United States; proper maintenance, construction and management of lawns of various kinds being the focus of much of the modern horticulture industry. Estimates of the amount spent on professional lawn care services vary, but a Harris Survey put the total at $28.9 billion in 2002 (approximately $1,200 per household using such services)”.

According to the EPA, "of the 26 billion gallons of water consumed daily in the United States, approximately 7.8 billion gallons, or 30 percent, is devoted to outdoor uses. The majority of this is used for irrigation."

I digressed there for a minute as an aside because Beth Madden indeed has brought up the subject that most Americans are familiar with although there is something far more profound about her question, “What part is that?”, which could trigger all kinds of things in life and human nature.

For example, what part is someone waiting for to embark on a business venture, a career change, or a commitment to do something that is outside of one’s comfort zone. Some have conjectured that perhaps Princess Diana may have waited for far too long for that part of Prince Charles that could have loved her deeply. Could things have turned out more differently, such as, that she could still be alive today had that part come to the prince in time? A wishful hypothetical for the millions of fans of the beloved princess but in reality there are actual people out there today under similar circumstances waiting for the part of someone they love to arrive in time to save a relationship.

Waiting for that part, in my opinion, could very well be also the father of invention. [Should I have said, “Mother of invention”?].  Let’s get back to mowing the lawn for a minute.  The first lawn mower, a huge improvement over a scythe, was something that needed to be pushed for the cutters to cut. I’m sure back then there were men and women, primarily husbands, of course, waiting for the part where a motor can do the rotating.  A gas-engine powered mower was invented but that wasn’t enough because more folks waited for the part when… well, ultimately somebody invented the self-propelled version. But do you know that someone out there, today, is still waiting for the part where the mower, on a programmed schedule, will start itself, motor out of the garage or storage shed, cut the lawn, edge, and trim the whole yard – all by itself.

"Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation", a very technical sounding but accurate definition of LASER, was early on a mere curiosity but was an invention waiting for a part.  And what an abundance of parts showed up! Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity could easily have been something relegated to the annals of obscure technical publications or discussed only in rarely held theoretical physics conventions if not for the fact that engineers have all been waiting for the part or parts that came with it. Today’s GPS, smart phones, live global TV broadcasts, more accurate tracking of celestial objects, future space exploration, to name a few, depend on that theory to hold true – always.

What possessed the Wright brothers to go from building/repairing bicycles to take to the air with the first airplane?  Soichiro Honda was a high school dropout mechanic who was turned down by Toyota when he applied for what he considered then his dream job.  Fortunately, for the world there were many parts of him that wanted to do more. After building makeshift mopeds from post WWII spare parts in war-ravaged Japan, his company’s cars and minivans are some of the most reliable vehicles today. The company now builds robots, [yes] lawn mowers, portable electric generators and even jet engines.

What part of Melinda Gates made her pick up a skin-and-bones African woman suffering from AIDS, then carried her to the roof top of the clinic so the dying patient can see her last sunset?  What part of the firefighter made him go back one more time into a burning building to save one more life? What of a soldier diving over a grenade to save his comrades?  These are people who did not wait for the parts of them to come along by acting instinctively towards what is good and right in their eyes and in their minds; and in their hearts.

The question for many of us is how do we know what part of us is still waiting to come out. The youth is likely the reservoir of many parts.  We can say that it is those who are good at coaxing these parts to come out who lead successful lives.  Such successes are not always measured by money and material possessions but by the depth with which these folks went down to retrieve the parts.  

The part easily dug out is not always the most meaningful. The part that matters the most is when one had to dig deepest from his or her heart, especially in the midst of adversity, hardship and sacrifice.  Lastly, at the end of our life’s journey the best time to reply, “NOTHING”, is when asked, “What part of us have we forgotten to bring out”.