Teenager makes core memory with their grandpa after new rule bans burning of leaves in the fall

Being suddenly barred from a long-standing routine is rarely taken well. It’s either inconvenient or just hard to adjust to new rules. But sometimes, people manage to find creative workarounds without causing any harm. That’s exactly what one Reddit user, u/throwaway1999000, did when a local law banned burning leaves. Instead of causing trouble, they turned the situation into a cherished memory with their grandpa.

"I'm reminiscing because my grandpa recently had a stroke. A few years back in the fall time, when he was in better health, we would rake up all the leaves in his large yard," the post revealed. "However, the township said we couldn't burn them like we usually do, a new law or something on the books," the person said. "Now, being that we live in a very rural area, my grandpa didn't like this. He was in his seventies at this point, and I think I was barely a teenager. But he was also a lawyer for years before he retired, so the law must be followed."

"Anyways, we didn't feel like taking load after load of leaves to the dump. But we couldn't burn them," the grandchild explained. "So we loaded them high into the back of grandpa's pickup, and not wanting to go to the dump, I said, 'Grandpa, let's just drive until they all blow away.'" So the duo set out on a drive until all the leaves blew away. "It was glorious—me riding shotgun and my seventy-year-old grandpa driving down the country road with the tailgate down, watching all those leaves blow out into the fields behind us. We had great fun doing it and still talk about it to this day. Can't burn the leaves, you say? Alright, then we'll redistribute them..."

People took to the comments to appreciate the beautiful story. u/Kinetic_Strike wrote, "Hope your gramps can recover - glad you have had some good times with him and made some solid memories. That’s a great memory to have." u/laser_red commented, "My parent's house had big trees with lots of leaves. We hauled them out to the town burn pile about two miles away. A little speed assured that only about half were left when we got there." 

u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul remarked, "By dumping the leaves back out, you unintentionally did one of the best things you could have done with those leaves. By leaving them on the ground, you help the soil retain moisture and nutrients, it allows the trees to recycle and reuse all the nutrients they spent growing the leaves again next year, and you allow all that carbon that the trees pulled from the air to be sequestered in the soil and return to the ground. By removing the leaves from your own lawn and spreading them around elsewhere, you deprived your own lawn and trees of much-needed nutrients and moisture, but you at least gave your neighbors a free handout (and potentially healthier lawn next summer), so I guess it all balances out. Burning the leaves would have been the worst possible solution: you're just dumping all that carbon that could have been sequestered back into the air."