“You need a suicide knob!” said my friend Jim DeSantis.

I blinked a few times, unsure about how to respond.

Was Jim hinting that I could do the rest of the human race a favor by ending my time on Planet Earth?

Well, no.

Jim had been sizing up our new zero-turn riding mower. Zero-turn riding mowers come in two basic types. One has large steering rods for each of the driver’s hands.

We bought the other type. It has a steering wheel. Jim was asking how well it suited us.

“The steering seems to be a bit tight,” I replied. My wife had found it to be a problem. So Jim offered his suggestion — while he happily zipped the mower through a few laps around our garden.

Jim chuckled as he told me of his years operating dump trucks for Brockway’s borough and water authority. The knobs were especially useful when he used a truck to plow snow, he said. A lot of steering wheel twisting is involved in the back-and-forth process of clearing parking lots, etc. The “suicide knob” enlists the upper arm’s biceps, not just the muscles of the wrist.

Jim’s “suicide knob” rekindled memories from the 1960s. My first car was a 1956 Plymouth with a then new-fangled push-button transmission mounted to the left of the steering wheel: “D,” “R,” “L” and “N.”

That car’s steering was anything but new-fangled. Today’s ubiquitous power steering did not come with the Plymouth that I bought used in 1963. Getting into or out of parallel parking spaces and other tight squeezes required one-two-three, perhaps even four-five-six wrist-straining tugs on the steering wheel just to squish the front tires from left to right or vice versa — but not if the steering wheel had a “suicide knob”!

The knob’s technical name is a Brodie knob. It looks like an old-fashioned round doorknob that could be grasped by the palm of your hand with the fingers curled down around it. It gained the “suicide knob” nickname because of the tendency of early models to come off in the driver’s hand during a turn at highway speeds, leaving the driver detached from steering. The result could be fatal.

“Suicide knobs” became illegal in state after state, but the law was not strictly enforced. The knobs’ force-multiplying effect can be dangerous at highway speeds. At park-it speeds, the danger fades. Today’s better-built knobs are helpful to some people with disabilities.

I moved my “suicide knob” off my 1956 Plymouth and onto the steering wheels of my 1960 Ford Falcon and 1964 Mercury Comet. Neither had power steering. By 1968, when a growing family pushed us into a station wagon, power steering had become common. The need for the “suicide knob” disappeared.

So did some of the risk. Today’s versions include bearing-equipped bases much less likely to come apart in use.

I thought it might be difficult to find a mower-adaptable reproduction. To my surprise, a Google search produced dozens of current models. They are now called “steering wheel spinners.” Since our riding mowers travel at 5 mph or slower, I decided to try one. I eschewed the ring-clamp version in favor of a sturdier small-tractor model that clamps two blocks around the steering wheel, anchored by bolts.

It is fun.

One of the selling points to a zero-turn mower is its ability to swoop around tree trunks, or nibble back and forth along fence lines. We have several slopes around our pond, so we opted for the less skiddable steering wheel model. The “suicide knob” (Excuse me! “spinner”) replaces the wheel tugging with just the flick of a wrist. I like that.

Wouldn’t you know it, though? Just as soon as I began having fun with my new “suicide knob,” our need for it diminished. A stump-twisted blade sent the mower and me to Dunlap’s Lawn and Garden, where the staff spotted a sticky burr on a steering slide and filed it smooth.

So the mower now steers easily by just using the wheel.

But, hey! If I can turn my mowing from a chore into a fun spin around the yard, I’m all for it.

And I love remembering the exuberance of owning my very first car, grinning as I cranked the “suicide knob” to coax it out of a parking spot and out onto the wide open road. This mower’s transmission is automatic. No buttons to push; the pedals determine forward or reverse with barely a pause.

So you’ll pardon me as I merrily slip up beside a huckleberry bush, nip a strand off a nasty multiflora rose and spin my way past my wife’s flowers … Oh. Oh dear.

Were those flowers?

Umm …. sorry. Gotta go. Quickly!

Denny Bonavita is a former editor/publisher at newspapers in DuBois, Brookville, New Bethlehem and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: notniceman9@gmail.com