Lined Up and Powered On: The Moten Brothers Mowing Era Lawn Maintenance Technician | June 1985 – September 1988

In the mid-eighties, “safety features” weren’t as sophisticated as they are today. As part of the Moten Brothers Mowing Services, my brother and I spent our summers at our grandmothers’ houses pushing manual mowers that offered no assistance in moving forward—every inch of progress was fueled by sweat.

This was my first masterclass in mechanical logic. I learned the rhythm of fueling the tanks and the physical grit required to pull the starter string until the engine caught. But the most memorable lesson was in “manual” systems control. One of our mowers didn’t have a kill switch on the handle; to shut it down, you had to understand the circuit. I learned how to carefully use my shoe to press a metal wire controller against the spark plug, shorting it out to stop the engine from firing. It was a visceral, hands-on introduction to troubleshooting and safety—knowing exactly how to “cut the power” when the situation demanded it.

Looking back, the discipline of lining up each pass so as not to miss a single blade of grass was the perfect precursor to a career in coding and systems development. Whether it was a suburban lawn in White Marsh or a complex database in D.C., the principle remained the same: you get out what you put in, and there is no substitute for a perfectly executed line.