The rain started last night, and I woke up to a rainy morning. I heard it on the roof and I heard it dripping from the eaves, but the rain has since stopped leaving behind a dark, cloudy day. The dampness makes it feel colder than it actually is. I have a few errands on my list, but I’m thinking today is a good day to stay home and while the time away in a good book.
Gracie and I went to the dump yesterday, and it was as crowded as I’ve seen it in a long time. I was in a line of cars waiting for a spot near the newspaper recycle bin. The trash bins too had a line so Gracie stuck her head out the window to get a better view while I just sat in the car and waited. I watched the people as they went about dump business: emptying trunks and walking from recycle bin to recycle bin.
When I was a kid, we always had trash men who hung on to the backs of the trucks as they went from house to house. They’d hop off, grab the barrels, empty them then toss the barrels back on the sidewalks. When the back of the truck got filled, the trashman would grab a lever and the top of the bin would come down and compact the trash. I thought that was sort of neat, and it was definitely noisy. My father usually brought the barrels back to the yard when he’d get home from work.
When we moved to the cape, my father loved the dump runs every Sunday. If we had company, they were always invited to join him as if it were a lark, a fun ride. The dump back then was a real dump with huge piles of trash and seagulls circling above them. You could see the dump and its trash from the highway. The cans always shined in the sun. I know when my parents moved off-cape my dad must have missed his dump. Putting trash cans on the sidewalk just didn’t have the same allure.
When I was working, I always went to the dump on Sunday. It was, after all, a family tradition.
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