91-year-old central Indiana veteran uses lawn mowing business to change lives
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — It took Jesse Parnell some time to get his garage as full of tools as it is.
“I’m closer to 92 then 91,” he said.
In Parnell’s garage are a collection of chisels, hammers and sockets belonging to a man who served in the Army. Parnell worked at a warehouse and managed a produce department before deciding to work on lawn mowers.
“My main goal is keeping off the couch,” Parnell said, “When I started working on them, I didn’t know how, excuse me, diddly squat about them.”
But with each broken blade and busted carborator, the man who didn’t know diddly squat, became an expert.
“I’m not bragging, but I’m pretty good at fixing them,” he said.
“When Mr. Jesse talked, it seemed like it gave me life,” Jonathan Long said, “I was seeing violence, drugs. It’s like a circle that you can’t get out of and he found my way for me.”
Long grew up near 30th Street and College Avenue.
“The grass is like this much, you have a front yard and you barely even have a backyard,” Long said about his neighborhood.
But when he was 13, he moved near Parnell, to a place with a bigger yard that required a lawn mower.
‘My neighbor knew Mr. Jesse had a lawn mower for sale so he introduced me to Mr. Jesse and me and Mr. Jesse talked and actually, I didn’t have enough to buy a lawn mower so he kind of looked out for me, kind of gave it to me for what I had,” said Long.
And when he decided to start a lawn mowing business, Mr. Jesse gave him several more.
“And ever since then, I fell in love with really cutting grass. That’s one of my biggest jobs, like I love it, dearly,” Long said.
His love for cutting grass has lasted 13 years. Now 26, he still has a lawn mowing business. But his relationship with Parnell taught him much more than just how to cut grass.
“There’s people that do love me and care about me and what I want to be in life and that’s Mr. Jesse for you. He didn’t know me from Adam or Eve and he kind of rotated my whole life to who I am today,” Long said.
“Oh it means a lot. I enjoy it. I want to see them succeed, instead of running up and down the street getting in trouble, that’s my main point in helping them. When I see a kid wanting to help himself, he’s on a mower that needs a lot of work on it but he’s trying to make some money for mowing yards, I fix their mowers for nothing.” Parnell said.
Not bad for a man who just wanted to stay off the couch.