They don’t make them like they used to

By Jeff Becraft

A few years ago, I needed to replace my lawnmower. This was more of a task than I had ever imagined. It just didn’t seem like there were any quality lawnmowers out there that were at some sort of reasonable price.

What I wound up doing is buying a model that was more expensive. It had a great track record and great reviews… and some older guy bluntly stated, “Just spend the extra money and get the better lawnmower.”

Anyway, after only being about three or four years old, my really nice lawnmower that supposedly was higher quality, developed problems. I talked to two different mechanics and they both said, “Sounds like you have a bent crankshaft… and if you have that, you might as well just get a new lawnmower. It will just be so expensive trying to fix that.” Their evaluation was that I probably hit a rock or something like that and that caused the spindle to bend.

Years and years ago, after Brenda and I got our first and only house, we were trying to establish a yard. We live in an area that is called the sandhills. Now, you can probably figure that one out all by yourself.  Trying to grow grass in a sandy area that gets very little rain and the temperatures are scorching hot during the summer… it’s not the easiest task. When we first moved to South Carolina in 1987 and we were running around thinking about maybe getting a house at that point, a realtor said to us, “If you see anything green, that means somebody is watering it.”

When we were first trying to establish a yard, I just had the old fashioned, reel mower that I had bought used from somebody. It did pretty good, except I had to mow the yard twice to get it to really look like it should. And then that mower began to fall apart. I had the handle held together by duct tape and everything else.

Well, without telling me, my wife had a garage sale. She took the money that she had made from that and went and bought me a brand new Craftsman lawnmower. Now, that mower lasted about 25 years… and I ran over everything with that thing. I ran over sticks, I ran over pinecones, I ran over rocks, I ran over tree stumps. I even accidentally mowed over the cap for the water pipe for our house. Our neighbor at that time had a very dry sense of humor and said to me, “Jeff, what did you do that for?”

That mower had no problems whatsoever. I think I only changed the oil in it twice. I would change the air filter once a year… sometimes. It lasted for 25 years and just kept on going till at the very end it developed a crack in the engine. Twenty-five years for a basic Craftsman mower. (Now I have heard that Craftsman is not what it used to be but I do not really know.)

After that mower died (after running over everything for 25 years), I then got a higher-end model to replace it (which I will let that model go unnamed) and it lasted three to four years.

Well… as they say, “They just don’t make them like they used to.”

Jeff Becraft is the Director of Our Place of Hope located in Columbia, South Carolina, where people find encouragement to regain meaning, purpose, and hope for their lives. Jeff has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives. If you would like Jeff to speak to your group or event, you can connect with him at  [email protected].