George Ballas loved a neat lawn. But the 200 trees crowding his two-acre yard posed a problem: Unless he got down on his knees and trimmed around their roots with shears, Ballas couldn’t achieve the perfection he desired. Then one day in 1971, as he sat in a Houston car wash, Ballas realized that the nylon bristles scrubbing his vehicle could also help tidy his garden. Back home, he rigged up an old popcorn can with fishing wire and bolted it to a rotating lawn edger, and the Weed Eater—now better known as the weed whacker—was born. “It made a helluva noise,” Ballas said in 1977. “But it ripped up the turf and tore away the grass.”
Born to Greek immigrants who ran a restaurant in northern Louisiana, Ballas served as an Air Force bombardier during World War II and the Korean War. After leaving the service, he married Maria Louisa Marulanda—a dance instructor whom “he met when she taught him the tango,” said The Wall Street Journal. The couple went into business together, managing several Arthur Murray and Fred Astaire studio franchises. In the 1960s, Ballas opened his own studio, Dance City USA—a 43,000-square-foot Houston venue that he called “a supermarket of dancing with babes and booze and big bands all under one roof.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Ballas continued to tinker with inventions over the following decades, engineering successful gizmos (including tiny engines for leaf blowers) and some notable flops (a football-helmet-sized mobile phone). “A Weed Eater,” Ballas admitted in 1993, “comes along once in a lifetime.”
-
Political cartoons for February 16Cartoons Monday’s political cartoons include President's Day, a valentine from the Epstein files, and more
-
Regent Hong Kong: a tranquil haven with a prime waterfront spotThe Week Recommends The trendy hotel recently underwent an extensive two-year revamp
-
The problem with diagnosing profound autismThe Explainer Experts are reconsidering the idea of autism as a spectrum, which could impact diagnoses and policy making for the condition
-
Catherine O'Hara: The madcap actress who sparkled on ‘SCTV’ and ‘Schitt’s Creek’Feature O'Hara cracked up audiences for more than 50 years
-
Bob Weir: The Grateful Dead guitarist who kept the hippie flameFeature The fan favorite died at 78
-
Brigitte Bardot: the bombshell who embodied the new FranceFeature The actress retired from cinema at 39, and later become known for animal rights activism and anti-Muslim bigotry
-
Joanna Trollope: novelist who had a No. 1 bestseller with The Rector’s WifeIn the Spotlight Trollope found fame with intelligent novels about the dramas and dilemmas of modern women
-
Frank Gehry: the architect who made buildings flow like waterFeature The revered building master died at the age of 96
-
R&B singer D’AngeloFeature A reclusive visionary who transformed the genre
-
Kiss guitarist Ace FrehleyFeature The rocker who shot fireworks from his guitar
-
Robert Redford: the Hollywood icon who founded the Sundance Film FestivalFeature Redford’s most lasting influence may have been as the man who ‘invigorated American independent cinema’ through Sundance
