Institute for Advanced Lawn Opinions Accreditation

Accredit your father's lawn opinions. Not the lawn — the lawn is his business. The opinions, which left the lawn behind years ago.

The Institute for Advanced Lawn Opinions grants accreditation after a full review of the candidate's body of work. His: four years of fence-line commentary delivered to neighbors at their own property lines; a seventeen-minute address on grub prevention given to dinner guests who had asked about the weather; and the standing position, held in all seasons, that the man across the street "waters at the wrong time of day, and knows it." Found rigorous, unsolicited, and advanced.

The certificate arrives under the Institute's seal — laurels of turf around a central sprinkler — with the continuing-education schedule that keeps the accreditation current. Twelve units per cycle. Standing at the fence earns one unit an hour. Disapproving of a mowing pattern, visibly, from a porch: two. The phrase "it's all about the roots": one unit per use, no cap.

Mail it in a document tube; accreditation doesn't fold. It doesn't authorize the opinions — nothing could — it only certifies they're advanced, and that someone outside the family has finally said so, which is the nicest thing you'll ever do for him.