Garbage Day

It's Wednesday...garbage day! There is only one garbage pick up service here in Brookfield - Holden's Haulers. Brookfield is considered a far-flung remote area where people go to ride their horses on the state-maintained trails, or to hunt. When I first called the BOCES school where I now work, sitting on the sofa in my makeshift living room up in the hay mow, the operator said Brookfield? You live in Brookfield? When I was a kid, she said, we could always go skiing in Brookfield when nowhere else had snow. That proved to be a prophetic statement! Anyway, I rented a dumpster from Holden's when I first moved here. Their dumpsters are ubiquitous in Brookfield and environs. Some are spanky new, shiny and red. I was really peeved when they dropped off a nasty, gnarly looking old dumpster. When I complained I was told, that's it, that's what you got and that's what you keep and you can paint it if you want. When you are the only garbage hauler around you can give all the attitude you want. Some people burn their garbage. Yes, you can still burn garbage in New York State. Living most of my life in New Jersey, the thought of burning my garbage and letting all those particulates into the air is horrifying. I've been programmed to let the industrialists kill us - murder, but no suicide. I appreciate my dumpster, and the service Holden provides. Soapmaking generates many containers, and animals go through feed sacks, etc., and generate all kinds of nasty things, and then there's the plastics. What did we do without plastic? I'm old enough to remember when there were only paper bags, and my school lunches were wrapped in wax paper. I had a window to the introduction of plastics into our lives. My first husband's father was a project scientist for Union Carbide in New Jersey. I remember when he was given the assignment of coming up with a "plastic bag." He had strips of plastic nailed to the trees in his yard to test their longevity. At this time we had paper grocery bags in metal garbage cans. You frequently picked them up and the bottom fell out with all the nasty stuff sticking to the bottom. A rag or a hose was necessary to clean up the mess. Now we conveniently use the plastic can liner. I'm as guilty as anyone, and I berate myself constantly. I read the daily diary of Roz Savage rowing across the Pacific as she encounters large areas of plastic bogs floating in the ocean, choking turtles and whales. What to do? Sew up some grocery bags for a start. I use all those little white bags around the farm, but there are still too many crammed in my drawer. Holden's will be here soon so I better get going and hustle the garbage out. It's so funny to hear them coming and watch out the window as they back into the driveway. The guys get out, open the top of the dumpster, then peer inside. What are they looking at? Am I being examined or graded as to the quality or legitimacy of my garbage? I'm always nervous...please take it - please, oh, please take that nasty stuff away!! They look for a while and they hook up the lifting device. I'm saved for another week!!