Patriotic push mowers
“It’s fine art, is what it is,” Daryl Diddle says, laughing.
Every July 4 since 1991—weather permitting—neighborhood men in shorts and sneakers, patriotic ties and John Deere ballcaps have performed a synchronized routine with push mowers to the accompaniment of Sousa marches during Wilmore’s annual Festival of the 4th parade. “We probably know 12 or 14 moves,” Diddle says.
The Wilmore Lawnmower Brigade is goofy. It’s self-deprecating. And it’s endearingly earnest.
Founded by Asbury University band professor Lynn Cooper, the brigade has become a staple of Wilmore’s Fourth of July celebration. This year, they’ve been invited to march in the Maysville Veterans Day Parade, as well, sponsored by the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center.
“It is sort of a cross between a marching band and Saturday chores,” says Diddle, the brigade’s “street commander” and senior pastor at Wilmore Free Methodist Church. The brigade, which rehearses twice during the week before the parade, has had members as young as 12, and as old as 75—and it welcomes new members who meet a few important requirements.
“All you need is a push mower, a little coordination, and a very good sense of humor,” Diddle says. “You have to be able to laugh at yourself.”
The brigade draws members who don’t often find themselves in front of a crowd.
“They are not typical performers,” Diddle says. “I think they just have a really good sense of humor, and they don’t mind people laughing at them, and making people happy.”
Humor makes it all work, alchemizing the ordinary stuff of life into a belly laugh. You might say the Wilmore Lawnmower Brigade is the dad joke incarnate—fine art, indeed.
See the Wilmore Lawnmower Brigade for yourself during Wilmore’s Festival of the 4th. The parade begins at 10 a.m. Recommended viewing is along Lexington Avenue between Asbury Theological Seminary and Asbury University, or along E. Main Street. Following the parade, enjoy inflatables, food trucks, music, arts and crafts vendors and more. Learn more about the Festival of the 4th.
