Human Candy: The Leaf Blower

This is Jeremy Tidd.

Jeremy was blowing leaves on the street when I got in my car the other day. I popped right back out to take his picture. Why?

Have you ever heard that saying that people resemble their pets?

You take a hard look at Jeremy and tell me that blowers of leaves don't resemble their, uh, leaf-blowing machines.

Jeremy, to me, resembles his power tool. Seriously. Tell me that I'm wrong.

I don't mean it in an unkind way. He also seems to me to be the human personification of the word "Autumn," too. Autumn, of course, being one of the most productive times of the year, when many fruits and vegetables come to fruition. (I just flashed on my farmgirl roots. Did you notice?) I thought he was fun to look at and maybe you'd think so, too. He's a little bit of human candy.

Part of the reason that I like looking at people so much is because some of them have a type. Jeremy is almost a character in a Hollywood film because his visual "flavor" is one of those "types." I'm not sure what type that is, but it seems very likeable to me, and something to be savored at this time of year. Maybe I can compare him to a pumpkin pie flavored lollipop. If such a thing existed, it would be a little sweet, seasonal, and yet made from a humble pumpkin, which everyone likes.

We have lots of leaves in the streets here in Washington right now. It's a very beautiful time of year, and in between damp, gloomy days, we are enjoying beautiful clear blue skies and the last weeks of warmth before winter sets in.

So it's a good time of year for Jeremy's business. You know what I've always wondered about people who blow leaves? Where exactly are they blowing the leaves to?

It seems kind of funny to me that someone pays a person to blow leaves off their property.

Of course, then their neighbor comes outside, sees that the leaves are blown his direction and pays another person to blow them back. But perhaps this is all part of our great economic system of "circulating American dollars."

But likely it's just more of the same stuff that Jeremy puts in a big bin with grass clippings, leaves and yard trimmings all summer and into the fall, then spreads around the landscape in the spring to make things grow.