The slowest gang in the South (end)

The Derby City Mowers, as they called themselves, weren’t your typical Louisville criminal enterprise. For one thing, their average age was 79. For another, their getaway vehicles topped out at a blistering 5 mph, which in Louisville traffic was actually sometimes faster than cars.

It started innocently enough. Harold, 81, had been banned from the Highlands Kroger for “aggressive bourbon sampling disputes.” Martha, 77, lost her driver’s license after that unfortunate incident with the Churchill Downs parking bollards. Eugene, 84, just liked the adrenaline rush and missed the old days when Louisville was “properly lawless.” Together, they formed the most leisurely crime syndicate in Kentucky history.

Their first heist was a bank on Bardstown Road. Harold rode point on his John Deere X350 with a Louisville Cardinals flag, Martha flanked left on her trusty Craftsman decorated with “My Grandchild Goes to Manual,” and Eugene brought up the rear on a vintage Snapper he’d won in a poker game at the St. Matthews Community Center. They rolled into the parking lot at 2:47 PM, right during Derby Festival season when everyone was drunk anyway.

“Nobody move!” Harold shouted, waving his mint julep cup as he dismounted. The bank tellers, confused by the convoy of lawn equipment parked diagonally across the Heine Brothers Coffee drive-thru lane, weren’t sure whether to hit the panic button or offer them the senior discount.

The gang made off with $47.50 (Harold had forgotten his reading glasses and grabbed the wrong bag), three Thunder Over Louisville promotional keychains, and inexplicably, a potted fern from the Kentucky Derby Museum next door. Their escape route took them through Cherokee Park (where they accidentally joined a 5K race), across the Bellarmine University campus (where they stopped to critique the lawn striping), and finally into the cave systems beneath the Louisville Zoo.

The police pursuit was… measured. LMPD Officer Jenkins later described it as “like watching the Pegasus Parade if all the floats were going different directions.” The chase lasted four hours, covered 2.3 miles, and was interrupted twice—once for Eugene’s insulin shot at the Thorntons on Eastern Parkway and once when Martha spotted an estate sale in Crescent Hill.

Their crime spree continued throughout Jefferson County. They knocked over the Flea Off Market (literally—Eugene’s depth perception wasn’t what it used to be), staged a daring daylight raid on the early bird special at the Galt House, and once held up traffic on the Watterson Expressway for forty-five minutes after Harold’s mower ran out of gas while stealing bourbon barrels from Angel’s Envy.

The Derby City Mowers became local legends. The Louisville Eccentric Observer ran a weekly column tracking their movements. Impellizzeri’s Pizza started offering “The Sunset Special”—any pizza delivered faster than the gang could escape. The police scanner even had a special code for them: “Code Green—someone’s papaw is at it again.”

Their most ambitious caper targeted the Belle of Louisville’s brass bell. As they approached the wharf, mowers humming in formation past Fourth Street Live!, Harold raised his hand for the attack signal. Unfortunately, this was also his signal for “I need to find a bathroom,” causing considerable confusion and an unplanned detour to the Omni Hotel lobby.

The heist went sideways when they discovered their mowers couldn’t navigate the gangplank. Martha tried to create a diversion by loudly complaining about the Belle’s lack of handicap accessibility while Eugene attempted to tow the bell using a complicated pulley system made from his suspenders. Harold fell asleep standing up, still gripping his mower handles.

They were eventually caught, of course. Not by spike strips or roadblocks, but by the St. Matthews Woman’s Club annual fundraiser. Martha had promised to bring her famous derby pie (the one she legally had to call “chocolate bourbon pie” after the Kern’s Kitchen lawsuit).

At their trial in Jefferson Circuit Court, the judge struggled to keep a straight face as security footage played showing their “high-speed” chase down Frankfort Avenue, including the part where they stopped at Please & Thank You for scones. Harold fell asleep during his own testimony, snoring so loudly it echoed off the courthouse’s historic limestone walls. Martha knitted matching scarves for the entire jury. Eugene tried to edge the small patch of courtroom carpet he claimed “looked like the groundskeeper at Slugger Field had done it.”

They received community service: teaching lawn maintenance at the Beechmont Community Center. The riding mowers were confiscated and donated to the Brightside neighborhood cleanup program, though Harold was allowed supervised visitation at the Locust Grove Historic Home, where he could critique their 55 acres of grounds.

Local police now keep a “lawn patrol” unit on standby, stationed strategically near every Home Depot and Lowe’s. The gang’s favorite escape route through Cave Hill Cemetery has been blocked by decorative boulders that Martha calls “architecturally insensitive to the Victorian garden aesthetic.”

And somewhere in the Highlands, three electric scooters sit in three different garages behind three different shotgun houses, fully charged, waiting for Thunder Over Louisville, when the noise will cover their relatively silent approach.

Because the Derby City Mowers may be down, but they’re not out. They’re just moving at a more sensible pace—and they’ve heard the Kentucky State Fair has very lax security around the prized pumpkin pavilion.

As Harold likes to say while sipping his Maker’s Mark at the VFW hall: “We put the ‘lawn’ in ‘lawn order.’ And if these young folks don’t like it, they can get off our grass—after we’re done striping it properly.”