The Dump

The neighbors needed to borrow our utility trailer so I finally had the incentive to pull it out of the trees, hitch it up and take it to the dump to get rid of all the branches we cut down 2 months ago.

I like the dump. Not the smelly dump where the garbage is rotting, but the treasure side of the dump. My dad took me to the dump all the time when I was a kid. We didn’t have Wal-Mart when I was a kid. The dump was better than a toy tore. While Dad was throwing all the garbage bags onto the burning piles (garbage fires were cool, If you could get past the smell) I got to crawl through the scrap metal piles and I was allowed to bring home bike parts, mostly wheels for the go-cart that never got built. On a good day, there was a newer style fridge with magnetic doors that I could cut open and get the long strips of magnets out. If we were really lucky we got to go at night and watch the bears come out and root though the garbage.

The closest cool garbage memory my kids have is watching the garbage truck at the end of our drive way ‘eat’ the old couch we put out.
Now that I am older, I can’t imagine taking the kids to a field trip to the dump. Of course, my kids have never rode down the highway in the back of a pick-up truck, taken off on a snowmobile on their own, rode a mini-bike wearing shorts and t-shirts or hitchhiked. Some days I am amazed I survived my childhood, other days I am sad that my kids might be missing out on theirs.