My Dump Picking Started When I was Young

Before recycling and municipal pick up of household waste, there were public dumps that homeowners were expected to use.

Ours was a small community and thus a small dump. Charlotte Harris went to the modern equivalent and was suitably impressed.

Dad ‘monbacked me into one of maybe ten huge bays. In the bays on either side of me were construction vehicles unloading debris. Behind us, the most gigantic bulldozer I have ever seen (imagine the biggest bulldozer you can think of then double it!)

She says if she ever has a boy, she is taking him there. She has her head screwed on straight. When I was a kid, we would hook up the most sorry excuse for a trailer on the back of dad’s truck and load it up for the dump.

I think the trailer would hold four barrels, and had very high sides (at least to an eight year old.) There were no massive bulldozers, just an old tractor with a scoop, to move around the waste. Back then waste wasn’t covered, it was just left to make a big compost heap.

There were two cool things about going to the dump.

sometimes dad would let me drive on the way home
if I wasn’t in the truck, I was riding in the trailer

6 Responses to “My Dump Picking Started When I was Young”

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1 cheryl
Sep 27th, 2007 at 5:33 pm

The suburban variation of that was trash-picking. My brother would find odd bits that the neighbors had put by the curb on his way to school. To my mother’s horror he would race home with his treasures then dash off for school.
2 goinglikesixty
Sep 27th, 2007 at 6:28 pm

I think the equivalent of that now is called eBay.
3 Catch Her In the Wry
Sep 27th, 2007 at 6:48 pm

And the urban version is dumpster diving. That’s where we go out to eat in the big city.
4 goinglikesixty
Sep 27th, 2007 at 7:02 pm

ewwwwwww.
5 Kirk M
Sep 28th, 2007 at 4:21 pm

Oh now, you’ve just brought back way too many memories of me and my father to think about at once. Except our truck was a station wagon but our trailer was absolutely homegrown. The axle was from a 32 chevy (rear end, complete with differential) and the wheels had 16″ winter tires from our old 64 Checker Marathon (yup, the cars they made taxis out of. I grew up in the back seat). We never had to change those tires.
6 goinglikesixty
Sep 28th, 2007 at 4:34 pm

>>>big grin< << I’ll bet our trailer was made out of something similar, the tires were bald. Don’t you wish you had that car now? Don’t all old farts say that!