To The Dump!

The conversation about the dump actually started with a picture of David's Uncle Richard's trailer in Amagansett  that he's selling for a cool million. And he'll most likely get it because over the years he's become surrounded by the rich and famous. Who are not fond of trailers or bait shanties. Or locals close up. So this conversation took a Remember When turn which eventually meandered to the local dump. There's a Facebook page frequented by transplanted and current locals so I posted a couple paragraphs - and in about 16 hours it's been liked over 50 times with comments still coming. The dump of my childhood was huge, it was used by the surrounding towns before they started trucking it out. Going to the dump was a favored activity, we often went with friends and if you didn't go with them it was OK because they were probably down there already. It sounds strange to anyone not growing up there but it was not just garbage - it was everything people didn't want. David was once given a hideous dining set by a client, it was a fake Mediterranean style complete with green tinted veneer and fake iron embellishments - he tried to give it away and finally gave up. He loaded it in the truck and as he was unloading a station wagon pulled up. The guy started cheerfully packing it in his car as David unpacked it out of ours - the pre-cursor to repurposing. He waited while David fished the nuts and bolts out of the truck bed, off he went with his "new" dining set.And that was everyone, the ugly old dresser you hated someone else  loved and crowed over their lucky find. There was so much that could be fixed and repaired, one woman reminisced that her father brought home broken bikes to fix and give to the kids that couldnt afford them. My mother had a friend that would brag about the slipcovers she found in perfect condition - in my 50s and I still recall that! The old toys were new to us,  scrap wood for forts and birdhouses. The guys at the dump would separate things into piles, household, appliances, the ever popular old lawn mowers. The summer people would dump tons of stuff rather than cart it back at the end of the season and it was ours for the taking! Shooting rats was an activity that started at dusk to early evening, it was the spot to go for practice with your new gun - a never ending supply of targets. Everyone took their kids down the dump for rat shooting or playing. Now of course it would be an insurance nightmare, you do realize our parents let us wander freely to explore and looking back no one ever died tragically at the dump. So there's a rather odd but fondly remembered childhood memory. And the funny thing is I'm not alone