“I’m wearing a garbage bag. I was put on my own worst-dressed list.”
Today is much like the last few days: cloudy, chilly and damp. It will stay in the 50’s, but I’m okay with that. Hot days will come soon enough. I have a list of errands today, none of them fun or exciting. Gracie would disagree. The dump is on the list.
My father loved his town dump. He went every Sunday and always tried to get one of us to go with him. Any weekend guests, including friends of mine from school, were generally coerced to take what we used to call the tour. The dump in those days was filled with tall piles of trash and had lots of seagulls flying overhead making all sorts of noise. My father would wend his way around the piles then add his contribution. The dump was easily visible from the highway. The birds gave it away. But now, the dump has changed, and my father would be keenly disappointed. The piles of trash have given way to recycle bins and trash bins and it has no seagulls. From the highway, all you can see is giant grass hills where the piles of trash used to be.
The house next door is a summer rental. It has never had anyone living there full time. The owners come up from New York before the start of the season to get the house ready. They mow the weeds in the front and back and put out the plastic deck furniture. That’s it for outside maintenance. At the end of the summer they’ll be back to mow again and to put the furniture away for the winter. The house is pretty simple with shingles (or shakes as some of you call them) on all four sides, no painting necessary. The front yard has pine chips instead of a lawn, no mowing necessary. Every Saturday the renters haul out the trashcans to the road and the trash truck comes. A couple of times I added a stinky trash bag to the pile. The alternative was to put it in my trunk until the next day, but even that one day is too long for stinky trash to sit enclosed in a hot trunk. I don’t ever meet the renters. I just hope they’re quiet and too tired to stay out on their deck too late. I almost called the police once because of noise. Our town has an ordinance about noise after 10. I held off, but I’m getting older and crankier and less tolerant. I just hope this summer’s crop is a quiet one.
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June 13, 2011 at 1:03 pm
We don´t have that tradition to go to the dump like You do. The trash truck comes wether You like it or not and every quarter the bill comes. It´s almost impossible to get away from it. So the few times we go to the dump is to recycle things that is to big or wrong for the smaller recycle stations we have all around.
All other things are now days burned to become electricity or heat. They even import trash from other countries because we have to little of it ourselves 🙂 🙂 🙂
From what I´ve been able to see at work the day has been lovely and rather cool. It was only 41F this morning 🙂 Now it´s warmer again and I think we might get thunder again, the flies outside are nasty now.
Have a great day!
Christer.
June 13, 2011 at 1:05 pm
He he this wasn´t something I wanted to happen 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well if You look closely I have changed one letter from my first post :-)m 🙂
June 13, 2011 at 8:06 pm
You’re all set-duplicate gone!
June 13, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Christer was beside himself?
Cheers
June 13, 2011 at 8:39 pm
Minicapt,
He was indeed!
June 13, 2011 at 8:05 pm
Christer,
I deleted the first one for you.
In the town where I grew up, we had trash trucks come once a week. They were a service paid for by our taxes. Now people in that town pay for their trash pick-up. Here, on the Cape, only private companies pick up trash. No towns have regular service.
We have plenty of trash which is also burned. Trucks haul it to the burning center. I forget where it is.
June 13, 2011 at 3:37 pm
What does the house rent for and why in a neighborhood and not on a beach or waterfront up there?
June 13, 2011 at 7:49 pm
Z&Me,
I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s big bucks. Lots of second homes are rented in the summer which pays the year’s mortgage. Over thirty years ago, my roommate used to rent her house for $350 a week, and she was even further away from the ocean than I am.
June 13, 2011 at 6:05 pm
June 13, 2011 at 6:07 pm
Kat..hope you don’t mind, but I dropped the wonderful Demon Days recorded in Harlem. Don’t know if you have ever seen this but it’s spectacular
Turn yourself Turn yourself around to the Sun !
Go Bruins
June 13, 2011 at 7:53 pm
My Dear Hedley,
How could I ever object to something as lovely as that, lovely to the ears and especially lovely to the eyes.
I needed all the color!
Go Bruins indeed!!!
June 13, 2011 at 7:50 pm
I am here in Denver today where the weather is partly cloudy and in the mid 80s. I have to teach a one day class tomorrow and then I fly back home in the evening. I once flew with a crew that worked for a man who owned the city dump in New Haven Connecticut. I never thought that the dump could be privately owned and I still can’t figure out how he made a fortune from owning the dump. You had a wonderful education from your father. Growing up I never gave the fate of our garbage a thought. The garbage truck came twice a week and drove off with the trash.
Do you remember the news story about the barge loaded with NY City garbage that couldn’t figure out where to dispose of the load. They traveled south looking for a land fill to take the stuff and couldn’t find any takers. I wonder what happened to that barge of garbage.
June 13, 2011 at 8:03 pm
Bob,
Around here we pay to use the dump-$90.00 a year but private pick up is even more, and they don’t recycle. The dump is the big spot in town for politicians running for office. They stand in front of the refuse bins shaking hands. I always wonder if they get the irony.
Wikipedia had the answer, ” Chartered by entrepreneur Lowell Harrelson and Long Island mob boss Salvatore Avellino, it set sail on March 22 from Islip, New York, escorted by the tugboat Break of Dawn and carrying 3,168 tons of trash headed for a pilot program in Morehead City, North Carolina, to be turned into methane. The barge was docked at Morehead City, until a WRAL-TV news crew, acting on a tip, flew by helicopter to the coast to investigate. Action News 5 Reporter Susan Brozek broke the story on the 6 p.m. news on April 1, 1987, and North Carolina officials began their own investigation, which resulted in an order for the Mobro to move on.
The barge then proceeded along the coast looking for another place to offload and continuing to meet stiff resistance. The Mexican Navy denied it entrance to their waters. It made it as far south as Belize, again being rejected, before returning to New York. Upon arrival it was met with a temporary restraining order and a heated legal battle preventing it from docking. In October, the trash was finally incinerated in Brooklyn and the resulting ash was buried where it originated, in Islip.”
June 14, 2011 at 1:30 am
It was like a summer day today. We don’t have dumps here, they pick up the trash, which is divided into trash, leaves and garden things, and two recycle bins. In my younger days, I used to be a “dumpster diver” if I saw something gleaming from the top– but I am getting too old and fragile for that anymore.
Makes me think of Seeger’s song Garbage, for some reason.
Waving ( with a little salt dispersed over my shoulder)
Lori and Meow Cat
June 14, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Lori and Meow Cat,
It is cold here. I’m wearing socks and shoes instead of sandals and have added a sweatshirt in the house.
In May and June, when the college kids leave, people take their cars and go up and down the street looking for furniture and stuff discarded by the kids going home. It’s the best time for foraging.
I almost posted that.