When I was just a kid, we lived in a neighborhood on the outskirts of town that was more rural than city. There were cows in the pasture behind us and the kids took over the neighborhood streets to play all kinds of games and await the daily run of the ice cream truck and the nice man who sold the cold and creamy treats that made summer endless.
One particular fascination of my childhood was the garbage men who would trek through the neighborhood back yards to collect trash from several houses into a giant garbage can they carried on their backs until such time as it would be emptied into the slowly trolling garbage truck that lumbered through our neighborhood.
They came by a couple of times a week and knew all of the kids, dogs, cats and assorted wildlife that inhabited our neighborhood.
Like the milkman, the garbage men had appointed routes but instead of delivery service, they provided pickup service for anything that was cast off from the homes.
Years later, when the garbage truck comes through, it doesn't take long to see that everything has changed dramatically. No longer going through the neighborhood back yards and fences to bring out the trash, the men who labored to make our lives pleasant twice a week have been replaced with a once a week trip by an automated truck with a giant claw that reaches out and grasps the giant, rolling bins that have been issued by the city in what they claim is a cost saving measure.
Personally, I believe they were seduced to believe that machinery was better than people. It is the cruelest form of 'the dark side' that is possible. For the garbage men were NOT second class citizens, nor were they looked at as being in a horrible profession. They were a friendly reminder that we were one community and that taking our trash to the city dump was a good and well paying job.
I am not sure that our garbage truck drivers think much beyond lining up the claw just right to keep from dumping over the enormous bins that dot our town like dark green eyes on our specific day for pickup.
Even with the changes that have come over time, there is one constant that is immutable and unchanging forever. If you miss that special appointed day, you will be stuck with the growing mound and personal reminder of your choices during the week. Not to mention the stench.
Whether the garbage truck comes once or twice a week, the fact remains that the garbage we generate goes away.
What would happen if they decided tomorrow that our garbage was our problem?
It's too grizzly to contemplate.
Thankfully, the garbage truck just came.
It reminds me of a joke that I heard one time.
A woman, seeing that it was garbage day and she was running late with her household obligations, and the gargabe truck was just rounding the corner, ran out in her ratty bathrobe, slippers and curlers in her hair and hollered "YOOHOO! Am I too late for the trash?" whereupon the garbage man said, "NO LADY! HOP RIGHT IN!"
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