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Dump Nostalgia I guess we all have memories
from our past that appear like a special pool of warmth and strength, memories
that relate to our souls in some
way, nostalgic links in the chain of our lives, perhaps a tie to our own
personal culture, perhaps a gift form our elders that is passed on as a value to
be honored, perhaps a genetic predisposition. In my own personal weave, the soul-thread is trash and dumps
and found objects. Hardly a day
goes by that I do not “find” something (yesterday I braked for a shiny
object in the road that turned out to be a 1/4 in drive socket, small but nice.
The day before it was a obsidian chipped object way up in the hills that
was the indian equivalent of the 1/4 inch drive socket.
The day before that I was given a load of metal by a contractor).
It’s fun and exciting cheap thrills! When I was in elementary
school in Idyllwild, California, my buddy’s mom, Jane, drove an old model A
pickup truck, wore a bell on one boot and took us to the dump on a regular basis
where we found all sorts of treasures. It
was fun. The dump was located in a
gorgeous mountainside overlooking panoramic
views of the area. In La Jolla
right on the beach, my brother and I always got up at 4 AM on trash day and went
along collecting interewting items sticking out of or lying next to the trash
cans. In Palmer Lake , Colorado I
went to the dump to find good stuff and it also had the most glorious smoky
quartz crystals unearthed by the excavation equipment. In Tesuque, New Mexico back in the good old days, the dump
was a social event, a multi-cultural experience, and a wealth of items to be
recycled. It was not uncommon to
see people from all walks of life eyeballing and retrieving goodies.
I personally built my house out of the dump and that was my bootstrap for
this life (Don’t bother picturing
a tarpaper shack, cause you’ll be way off the mark.)
El Dorado dump was also a good one.
It shared most of the same characteristics that good dumps have.
It was fairly critical and usually happened that the persons in charge of
the dump looked like they belonged there and had a lifetime of experience in
this field. They were usually the
dump equivalent of the those charmers at Wal-Mart who might welcome you there.
I romantically pictured myself being
one of those dump-wise scarecrows in my old age.
The Santa Fe dump also had the basic good dump qualities on a larger
scale back in the old days. There
were always people loading things from one truck into another, people gathering
scrap wood and all kinds of wonderful things.
It was like a super yard sale for the people who didn’t want to go to
the flea market or open hands (or couldn’t afford to).
I saw very little shame attached to the recycling going on, other than
the mad work( later on in the dump’s history) to beat the monstrous sheepsfoot
machines that were headed right for you and came in between you and the stuff. Now, the county wants to
force me to put my stuff in a plastic coffin for junk and to deny me and my
children the excitement of my life. Its
like we want to hide our dead so quickly and pretend that our lives are so slick
and clean. The rule makers seem to
always win and the ones who want to push a lifestyle that is uncluttered by
reality; they are compulsive in
their behaviours and I am not (well not that much, I’m pretty easygoing
really). So I’m sad about this
and think something should be done about it, (or not done).
I am reminded of an expression we have down where I live where I wonder
whether some of these people changing my life so radically “ Don’t know the
difference between a rat turd and a pinon nut!”
February 6, 2002
Thor V. Sigstedt |