Remember Grandpa jailed with No bail for brown lawn? I felt so sorry for that guy, in jail because he couldn’t afford to comply with his homeowners association rules that made it a first grass felony to allow your lawn to turn brown. Well he’s out of jail because people really do care about each other in this great country.

H/T StSean

BAYONET POINT – Andy Law was eating breakfast with his girlfriend, Mary Dinan, at their Hudson home Saturday morning when she pushed the newspaper at him.

“Read this,” she said.

It was a story in the St. Petersburg Times about a 66-year-old grandfather, Joseph Prudente, who was jailed without bail on Friday because his lawn was brown. For nearly a year, he ignored letters from his Beacon Woods homeowners’ association and a court order because, he said, he barely had the money to pay his mortgage. He was trying to keep his house and didn’t care about the lawn.

“This is not right,” Law said. He was livid.

He got a guy to let him borrow a machine to remove the old grass. Two companies donated sod. Soon, the yard was full of people. Pasco County Commissioner Jack Mariano also read the story, found the house, canceled a speech and went to work.

A man came to fix the sprinkler. People dropped off checks. A neighbor looked at all the work being done and cried because she felt her faith in humanity restored.

By 6 that evening, the yard was done. There were blocks of new grass, red mulch, flowers and a working sprinkler.

Joseph Prudente didn’t know about the work that had been done at his home, about the strangers who came together to help him. And when he pulled in the driveway and stepped out of his car, he cried.

“Welcome home,” Law said, and shook his hand.

What a heartwarming ending. I wish this neighborhood was every neighborhood in America.

Barack Obama said

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

Which may or may not be more appropriate for this story than when John McCain said

“You kids get off my lawn!”

Obama/Biden 08  Unity.