Most cities now have one man
who drives a huge truck & only gets out if one of the bins isn't placed
correctly. He drives up beside the container pushes a button that extends a big
grabber arm around the can. Another button clamps it around the container. I'm
guessing there is a lever that raises the can around ten feet in the air
dumping it over the top & into his truck. The now empty can is then lowered
to its position along the street. The driver moves forward a few feet to the
next bin repeating the process. And he nods & waves hello to me as we pass
each other.
It intrigues me how my
morning walks get my mind thinking about all sorts of things. As I watched this simple garbage collection process, I was reminded of how it used to be in the
"old days". Back when I was a child - shit, that was 60 years ago -
there was a whole different way of performing this necessary chore.
Our garbage cans were
smaller metal ones with a round detachable lid with a handle in the middle. It
made a great shield for our sword fights with tree branches. Or if we
commandeered our neighbors, they were terrific cymbals! About then a mother
would appear telling us to put that back. The cans were all outside of the back
gate accessible from the street.
On garbage day, a truck
would proceed down the street. Well muscled men in dirty T-shirts & jeans
would wheel a larger receptacle up to each house's garbage can, lift it & dump it
into the larger can. I think the big ones held around four houses worth of weekly
garbage. The garbage man rolled the full can to the truck & hefted it into
the back.
When all three or four men
had emptied their big cans they hopped onto the back of the truck rolling the big cans along as the driver moved the truck down the street about a block or so.
They jumped off & repeated the process. I'm sure those guys were in much
better shape just doing their jobs than most people. And they saved any gym
fees since I'm sure their time off was spent relaxing with such a physical job.
My understanding was that they were paid pretty well, rightly so, for what was
manual labor work.
I think the dogs in the
neighborhood looked forward to garbage day more than anything. The gates were
made with slats allowing for some vision through the gate. On garbage day my
mother would let the dog out just before the men arrived to "steal" our garbage. The dog went crazy, barking & jumping at them as they walked
up & emptied the garbage can just on the other side of the gate. I think
the dogs all knew they were totally safe but could act like big, brave watch
dogs protecting their property as the workers calmly did their job.
As I walked around Sun City this morning, I had this post about
three-quarters of the way "written" in my head. But the trouble is that my brain
doesn't retain things even close to what it used to. It occurred to me that I needed one of
those little mini tape recorders people had years ago that you could carry in
your pocket & just push a button to speak a reminder that was recorded. I'm guessing there is probably an app for that now days. But not having
one of those, or the app (if there is one), I just kept going over it in my
mind until I returned to my car. Then I grabbed a pen & scribbled notes on
the back of a receipt that I found in my purse.
It was a fun trip down
memory lane as I walked along thinking about how the art of garbage collection
has improved over the years. And it seems that the workers must be happier
since I haven't heard of a garbage strike in many years - thank goodness. I
can't imagine how awful those times must have been when garbage piled up in the
streets for weeks. Yuck!
But enough of all that
garbage - ha, ha, pun intended. I hope you are all still hanging in there with
this unprecedented quarantine & disruption of "normal" life that
the Covid-19 has caused. My next post will be on some random thoughts of our continuing country-wide lockdown. Stay safe & keep your spirits up.
