Popularization in 2008? 

Personally, I don't believe I heard this phrase before 2008. Gran Torino, which uses the phrase prominently, came out in 2008. The ageist attacks against John McCain on left-wing websites in 2008 seemed to really popularize the phrase on the Internet. I notice that virtually none of this article's references about the actual phrase itself date back before 2008. (This article's pre-2008 references seem to be about lawns in general, not about the actual phrase.) This article itself did not exist prior to 2008, even though Wikipedia was founded in 2001. If this phrase was common prior to 2008, I recommend adding some earlier references about the use of the phrase. If it wasn't common before 2008, this article shouldn't be giving the false impression that it was common decades earlier.