When my dad and my grandpa used to mow the lawn, they would do it "bare-chested." That's what my dad would call it. And, as a boy of four or five, I was intrigued by this concept, that of bare-chestedness. Because I was keenly aware that while being in this state was something the two model men in my life seemed to do whenever they wanted, the women never did—my mom, my grandmother, my sister. Clearly, being in this state of bare-chestedness was one of those things only boys could do, along with the awesome faculty to pee while standing up. Damn we were lucky.

Of course, as soon as I discovered this, I too went bare-chested whenever I got the chance, because it was profoundly important to me to be like my dad. And even though I couldn't actually mow the lawn yet, I used to follow behind him with a plastic Fisher-Price model. And there I would be: jean-shorts, cowboy boots (which you had to pry off of me when I went to bed) and a bare-chest which, unlike my dad's, had no "fur" on it.

Just to be clear, my dad didn't wear cowboy boots when he mowed the lawn, so I'm not sure where that came from. I've since substituted the boots for New Balance or Merrell which I suppose in some ways is a real tragedy, but the rest of the outfit is pretty much the same: shorts and a bare chest—grunt. That is until recently. Because Jersey's weather isn't reliably warm in April, or even May. This year, the warm spring days have been few, and have been bookmarked by bouts of cold, wet rain.

So this weekend, as the clouds and wind gathered for another onslaught of the wetness, I sliced blades of grass in a long-sleeved cotton shirt and a red fleece sweater-vest.

Dad never told me there'd be days like this.

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