ONE MANS JUNK

One of the highlights of my life growing up in Staples was to accompany my father to the dump. About once a month he would hitch up his trailer that sat out by the garden and we would take that dirt road that ran along the railroad tracks, east of town, to the city dump. He would also take his pump Winchester 22 caliber rifle along so we could shoot rats. We always went at dusk when the rats were most active, and we would sit on the hood of the car just in case a rat got aggressive. My dad would howl with delight every time he got one, and as I got older he would let me try my luck, too. This was before anyone knew what a redneck was.

I talk about this because we often criticize today’s kids for their video games, which all too often involve shooting fictional people in various roles. I have tried out my grandson’s video game, but it doesn’t hold a candle to plinking a rat at the city dump.  To those who say video games lead to a propensity to grow up violent, I want to unequivocally state that I have never had any desire to shoot anything else, except wild game in season. Nor did my father.

There is an old adage about “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure” and my dad bought into that big time. All too often, we brought a load of junk to the dump, and came back with another load of someone else’s junk, that would just sit around until my father realized he didn’t really need it anyway, and then we would haul it back. I swear, this exchange program got so serious that, sometimes, we brought back junk that we had originally deposited out there.

As I look around my property, after fifty years of keeping house, I often say, “I got to get rid of some of this crap,” so I make little piles, because once a year I go to the landfill with my junk, and use my five dollar coupon the county sends out. Now, I’m in the last quarter of my life so saying, “I might use this or that someday,” just doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s been my experience that, when I do come across a need for something that might be in my junk category, I can’t find it anyway, so I just do the easy thing and run to town and get another one at the hardware store. I gave some thought to taking an inventory and entering the junk into a computer program that would tell me where I hid all the stuff, but as I told you, I’m in the last quarter of my life and I feel I would be doing that, not for me, but for someone else who I can tell you for sure—because he told me so—is going to rent a dumpster when it comes time to clean out my estate. His theory is, “one man’s junk is not going to be another man’s junk.”

I once visited some friends who have been married about fifty some years, and as I looked around their house, I noticed that every conceivable piece of wall space was covered with something. I think if they could have found some way to conquer gravity, they would have plastered the ceiling full, also. When I asked them if they ever threw anything away, they told me, “Hush your mouth man, do you know what this stuff is worth?” My guess is “nothing,” unless you find someone who wants it—and my dad is no longer alive.