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Lengendary country singer George Jones spoofs his lawnmower exploits in a video for his hit "Honky Tonk Song."(Photo: MCA Nashville)
The legendary lawnmower escapades made famous by country singer George Jones apparently are alive and well in central Pennsylvania.
Just like Jones – considered by most fellow artists and many fans to have been the greatest country singer of all time – 25-year-old Milton resident Tyler Anspach rode a mower along a local highway, according to state police.
Actually, some of details are different. Jones, who did the caper at least twice -- once when his then-wife, fellow music star Tammy Wynette, hid his car keys to prevent him going to the liquor store – used a bright green John Deere as his mode of transportation. Anspach preferred a white-and-yellow Club Cadet. Also, Jones managed not to get arrested for his alcohol-fueled exploits.
Anspach was not so lucky.
According to Daily Item, a newspaper in nearby Sunbury, state troopers said they had to use a rope to secure Anspach, who allegedly was both drunk and carrying a box of beer. The Milton resident also threatened a trooper after he was apprehended on July 13 during his trip to a friend's house in neighboring Limestone Township, according to court documents seen by the newspaper.
The trouble started when police were called around 9:30 p.m. after reports complaining of agitated man making threats and driving a lawnmower along the road. The court documents claim responding troopers could smell alcohol on Anspach and saw him stumble. His blood-alcohol content was measured at .21 percent, nearly triple the legal limit.
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Anspach, who has three drunken driving convictions in the past 10 years and whose driver's license is suspended, according to the Item, told Trooper Maxwell Andres that he was attempting to visit a friend's house.
After the stop, the paper reported, Anspach became uncooperative and combative, failed to comply with the trooper's commands and was taken into custody.
Upon leaving the state police station to be transported to Union County Jail, Anspach continued to be aggressive, according to the police, telling Andres that he had "better watch his back" and that he was "going to (expletive deleted) kill you." He also allegedly kicked the police cruiser's central divider and screamed.
Anspach was charged with driving while under the influence of alcohol, disorderly conduct, public drunkenness, not having a registration and certificate of title, driving while his license is suspended or revoked, not having financial responsibility and careless driving.
Contacted by USA TODAY on Wednesday, a woman who claimed to be Anspach's mother said her son was "not available" and that he was still in jail awaiting a hearing, likely to take place in August.
As for Jones, who also was pulled over by police several times (though not while riding a mower), the first and most well-documented lawnmower incident was the late Sixties. According to the website SavingCountryMusic.com, Jones, was living near Beaumont, Texas, when his then-wife Shirley Corley resorted to hiding all the keys to the vehicles before she would leave so George wouldn't drive to the nearest liquor store.
But that didn't stop him, the site relates. After tearing the house apart looking for a set of keys, Jones, who died in 2013 at 81, looked out the window to see a lawnmower sitting under a security light.
"There, gleaming in the glow, was that ten-horsepower rotary engine … a key glistening in the ignition," the singer recalled in his autobiography, "I Lived to Tell It All."
"I imagine the top speed for that old mower was five miles per hour. It might have taken an hour and a half or more for me to get to the liquor store, but get there I did."
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The second of Jones' grass-cutter escapades, according to SavingCountryMusic.com, happened when he was married to Wynette. Like his previous wife, Wynette hid all the keys from her hell-raising husband, but to no avail, as she found out when she woke up one night at 1 a.m. find Jones missing.
"I got into the car and drove to the nearest bar 10 miles away,"Wynette recalled in her 1979 autobiography, "Stand By Your Man.""When I pulled into the parking lot there sat our rider-mower right by the entrance. He'd driven that mower right down a main highway. He looked up and saw me and said, `Well, fellas, here she is now. My little wife, I told you she'd come after me.'"
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