Mrs ERJ had the pleasure of encountering a mother and her two boys, ages 6 and 9 at the local recycling center.
The Eaton Rapids City recycling center is a passive recycling center. It is comprised of four haul-away gondolas and recyclers are expected to be intelligent enough to separate glass (four compartments, one for each color) from plastic from magnetic metal from aluminum.
When one of the bins gets full, a recycler will call the number on the placard, the wheels turn and somebody shows up to deposit an empty bin and haul away the full one. Recycling, done the Eaton Rapids way, does not justify the employ a single additional municipal worker.
Mrs ERJ found the mother diving into the plastics bin. She was looking for a couple of specific kinds of containers. She had a project that required large Folger's Coffee containers with snap-tops and her daughter (not present) also had a project that required something special.
The boys were exploring on their own. Mrs ERJ learned that they had been "helping" their mother since they were three. They thought dumpster diving was great fun and were not the least bit mortified. They were boys doing what boys do.
One of them announced "Mom! Do you need another kitchen knife?" as he held up the tool.
"Nope. I have plenty. Thanks. Leave it for the next person" his mom boomed back.
Larry Dean Olsen, a person who instructs students in wilderness survival in the Inter-mountain West tells of people who died of thirst next to a flowing stream. Presumably, they chose to not drink the water because it was uncomfortably muddy. He also speaks of necessity being the mother of exalted levels of industry.
I would not bet against this family should the Greater Depression continue to incubate. Stories like this give me hope. We are not all sheep. Not all of us look to Faceborg to fill our lives with "should", "must" and "don't".
“Listen to the mustn'ts, child.
Listen to the don'ts.
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me...
Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” -Shel Silverstein
Nice story Joe. It is encouraging to hear about people like that. Hopefully their contacts with others will help spread that good attitude of self sufficiency. --ken
ReplyDeleteNo shame in doing what you need to do...
ReplyDeleteThat women is raising young men, not children as all too many families are.
ReplyDeleteIn many jurisdictions, unfortunately, doing this would mean trouble with the government.
The nice leather upholstered armchair in my bedroom was scavenged off the sidewalk of Alexandria. All it needed was some Gorilla Glue to secure the one arm.
ReplyDeleteWhere I live now (rural), the county has dumpsters distributed around for people to use (usually 3 dumpsters per site), and then comes and collects weekly. People are very good about setting aside things that are still usable for someone to take. People toss so much usable stuff because they've upgraded or decided they were decluttering.
I can remember when dumps were open air, and anyone could come sift through the piles. Today's landfills don't do that. Too much garbage and rats, I guess.
When we turned off our cable TV, I set two perfectly good, working Sony Trinitrons on the curb with a big "Free" sign. The sign even said they had working remotes with good batteries. Nobody wanted them. They sat there for several days so I lugged them to Goodwill. They wouldn't take them either. I took them to the dump.
DeleteRecycling is a humorous business. My In-Laws in Mass. are told to remove the labels from containers? Seriously.
ReplyDeleteMany locales still haven't figured out that recycling glass is stupid. There is no shortage of sand or lime and it consumes more energy to recycle than to make new. My city stopped that silliness years ago.