Life in Virginia

A riding lawnmower is no place to finish off the effects of a few cold brews. That’s what Glenn Bowers, 46, learned Wednesday afternoon when stopped by a cop as he puttered along a downtown Waynesboro street.

A failed field-sobriety test and a 0.24 percent blood-alcohol content - three times the legal limit of 0.08 - led to Bowers’ arrest, police said Friday. Police also impounded his beat-up Craftsman mower, and briefly kept Kazoo, the Jack Russell terrier Bowers towed behind him in a green, plastic garden trailer.

“I think it’s a bunch of [expletive], if you want my opinion,” said Bowers, a lifelong Waynesboro resident. It’s not his first DUI charge on a riding lawnmower. That one came the night of May 7, 2003, as Bowers motored through downtown.

This time around, Bowers, a self-employed handyman with neither a driver’s license or car, was homeward bound after finishing a lawn-mowing gig and, he admitted, several Budweisers. He was inching through downtown when spotted by an officer already tipped off to Bowers’ presence via a 911 call.

“I could understand if I was in a car,” Bowers said as he stood in the front yard of his North Bayard Street home. In the crook of one arm Friday, Bowers held the white-and-brown haired Kazoo, named after the miniature green Martian from the Flintstones.

“He took real well to [the police officer],” Bowers added. The officer kept Kazoo until Bowers’ girlfriend arrived at the police station. With his other hand, Bowers pulled back the blanket covering the battered Craftsman mower. It tops out on the road at about 6 mph, he estimated.

He had to shell out $65 to get it out of a police impound lot.

Police said Bowers ran a downtown stop sign. That’s what initiated the traffic stop. Bowers argues that he stopped and looked both ways before continuing.

“I knew what I was doing,” he said.