Wicked Local ‘Good Old Days’ not so good, vote no on Article 47 A recent letter-writer on this topic expressed a nostalgia for the "old days" in which people raked leaves, et cetera. I lived in those "good old days" in which there were no gas-powered leaf-blowers, no gas-powered lawn-mowers, no gas-powered hedge- pruners, no gas-powered weed-trimmers, no gas-powered lawn-edgers. Hell, there were no lawn services; kids mowed the lawns. I could get a whole twenty-five cents for mowing a 4,000-6,000 square-foot lawn with a reel-type push mower, and another shiny quarter for getting down on my hands and knees to trim the edges with hand clippers. All I ever got from raking leaves were blisters.