I just spent the first of what will be several days’ labor, blowing, raking and bagging up fallen oak leaves. It’s Fall. It’s what we do in the Fall in the Northeast. I don’t really know why we do it.

Cleaning up the leaves, which after November put on a beautiful show of color, is arguably a more revered National Fall Pastime than football. Getting them all up every year until the yard is spotless takes a great deal of work, or money, if you hire people to do it for you. But it is eventually finished. Still, I’ve heard over the years that this is purely an American aberration. It raises eyebrows and is the basis for humor all over Europe. A crazy American occupation. Cleaning up leaves? Really?

When I was a boy of seven or so, we lived in Eastern Washington State, where there weren’t many leaves to fall. Few as they may have been, my father would use up a Saturday or Sunday with rake and bushel basket, getting rid of every last one that fell upon our collection of weeds and yellow crabgrass. Once he told me I was going to help, I wondered what the big deal was. I even asked him once.

“Dad, why do we have to rake up the leaves, anyway?”

“We have to catch ‘em before they get away! Because they’ll blow all over the neighborhood and if we left them and they didn’t blow around, they’d kill the lawn.” He’d answer without looking up or loosening his grip upon the bamboo rake. The answers varied every year, but were sufficiently similar that eventually I quit asking and just got on with it. Of course, that didn’t mean I ever stopped wondering.

Once I grew up, sometimes Fall would find me in an apartment, a dormitory, or so far out in the country that it didn’t matter if either the lawn died or the leaves blew around. Later, as I became a homeowner, feeling the acute pangs of guilt peculiar to the American Suburban Male each Fall, I’d grab the rake and do my citizenly duty.

Eventually, my arsenal of weapons against the unsightly onslaught of red, yellow, brown and orange included several different shapes and sizes of rakes, a variety of bagging devices, huge grabbing claws for my hands as well as ear protectors and a gasoline fueled blower. The blower spewed out both high decibels of annoying sound, but also tons of nasty hydrocarbon emissions. I often wondered while re-fuelling up for another offensive push, if it really helped, or just added to the work. In either case, my Fall ritual endured.

Of course, one of the primary pressures were the dirty looks I’d get from neighbors. I seemed to be the only man on the block who waited until all the leaves were down until I began bagging them up. My neighbors would glare at leaves blowing down the street, clearly my fault because of my procrastination. This was one rule I still refuse to break. I won’t rake until they’re all on the ground. It has occasionally meant scrambling fast when an early snow threatens to turn the entire job into an operation for heavy equipment, but I get by.

But I still wonder why we do it.  For the lawn is no answer for me, as we live under towering oaks and what little light gets through each Summer will not support grass except the crab variety, so that’s not it. Each Fall, Americans all go forth to do battle with the leaves that they enjoyed all Summer long, even feeling happy and hopeful when the earliest Spring buds break open. Almost as if in denial about the struggles to come just a few months down the road.

We Americans have a unique history among descendants of the European languages. I’m a lifelong student of history, so there must be a clue in our past, as to why we must eradicate the fallen leaves each year. Something beyond the fact that a clean yard looks nice. Why does it look nicer? Why do we even want a yard? A lawn?

. Certainly there is nothing genetic in our desire for a spreading expanse of unsullied, uniform green around our habitations. I’m sure that the earliest people were just happy to find a place to live that wasn’t too far from water and game. Leaves fell each year then, too, but no one, I’m sure, took the time to rake them up into piles to clean up around the cave.

I believe that when Americans did away with blood royalty and inherited nobility and rank, we led ourselves into odd patterns of behavior that allowed us to mimic royalty without actually bowing to it. Once a family had a home – a man’s castle, after all – they could begin to add the trappings of royalty, assuming they could afford the improvements. European Kings, Land Barons and Nobles’ homes usually featured a broad expanse of grass around the perimeter of their estates, nearest their actual dwellings. Trees and their clutter were usually kept well away from the walls. No bushes or shrubbery were allowed to encroach too close. There must have been a reason for this.

There were actually a couple of reasons. First, came the domestic animals. Kings, Barons and Nobles usually owned a lot of these, and they needed a lot of grazing land. It was always preferred to be able to see all your animals from your home, as they were the wealth of the day, subject to predation and theft. The best castles had their pastures right up against the walls. The grass would grow all Summer and the horses and cattle would keep it mowed. Clipped and neat, except for the piles of dung.

As Kings, Barons and Nobles got richer, they found they could expand the pastures well off from the walls to minimize the stink of the livestock, but there must have been a reason they still wanted grass near the manor. That reason was enemies. It was very hard to sneak up upon an enemy’s home if there was no cover, nothing but short clipped grass right next to the house itself. It gave those safely inside a nice, long, unobstructed view in every direction. By the time someone had crawled up close enough to be seen, they were usually within the range of the archers atop the walls.  Grass meant protection. Protection meant status. Status meant more wealth, and so on.

As Suburban Americans, each year we have the unique opportunity to rekindle our need for the trappings of royalty. While the large-screen TV has replaced vast livestock holdings as the key to status, our carefully clipped lawns – meager as they may be – still identify us with the safety and status of royalty. We may have to slave against the very forces of nature, but in the end, we’ll rest for a moment against our rake, or sit on our front yard bench, or porch and marvel at the beauty of our work. Proud of the accomplishment. Important work.

That is, until a stiff breeze brings our neighbor’s leaves over the fence.