Friday, August 26, 2011

Trashman

Wednesday nights are a big deal at my house. It’s a time of celebration. That’s the night I put the garbage cans out so they can be emptied the next day by the man in the truck. It’s not as much fun during the winter – so part of my enthusiasm is to mask my reluctance in going out into the cold.

Garbage has a special meaning for me; I spent 12 months of my life on a garbage truck. I treasure that experience and wouldn’t throw it away. It was hard work – so every Wednesday night I celebrate the experience, the memory and the fact I don’t do that for a living anymore.

Garbage was collected differently in the early 80’s than it is today. The garbage was in metal cans, and we picked them up, not by grabbing them with a mechanical arm extended from a truck, but with our hands. Some days 700 cans were emptied. I don’t seek pity or praise – rather I offer the perspective of walking in another’s shoes.

The first six months of my stint as a garbage man were in St. Cloud. I had graduated from St. Cloud State University and was waiting for Rhonda to do the same; she had started a year later than me. At night I tended bar at The Red Carpet (another column?) and drove the trash truck during the day.

Hermie rode on the back. He was not a big man – maybe 5-foot-6, 140 pounds – but he was tough. No can was too big for him to abuse. If people put out too many cans or they had forgot to put there cans out he would holler obscenities at the house. I would get out and help on an especially heavy stop, but he preferred that I stayed in the truck to keep our day moving.

One of my favorite memories is when two toddlers waved as we drove by their house. When I pulled the air-horn in response they both tipped over. When Rhonda graduated in the spring I moved from St. Cloud. The following year we were married, and I began law school. The next year I was out of school with that dream dashed, so I needed a job.

I felt that my degree should account for something but was having trouble finding someone to agree with me. It’s hard to look for work when you’re working, but I found it harder not to work. So I got a job as a garbage man, except this time I was riding on the back of the truck for $5 an hour.

It took more grit than I possess now to get out of a warm car and climb on the back of a garbage truck in an October rain; cold, wet gloves may be worse than no gloves at all. My index fingers were so calloused after a few weeks of emptying cans, that I could pop the metal lids off two tightly sealed garbage cans with one movement.

Glenn, the driver, weaved in and out of the alleys and streets of South Minneapolis while I threw the cans. Rhonda would pack me a lunch, which I learned to share with Glenn in the truck in between stops (don’t worry I wiped my hands on my pants before I ate).

“What’s for lunch today?” he would ask. After we ate he would toss the candy wrappers out the window. “Job security,” he would say with a grin.

We worked for a guy who would haul away anything. Sometimes we would carry hide-a-beds down from the third floor of a house, other days we would back up the truck to a busted-up concrete driveway, open the back end and shovel the chunks into the truck.

I know that there are people who work harder than this every day, and I respect them for it. It was brutally hard work and not what I went to school for, but it was a job and I was getting paid. Those days as a garbage man are gone, and on Wednesday nights I think of them when I take out the trash.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Fence

There weren’t a lot of summer job opportunities for 12-year old boy in Belle Plaine in 1971. You could deliver newspapers, mow the neighbor’s grass, or bail hay when the farmers called. Few people were willing to give a kid a chance to prove himself –you had to know someone. Apparently, I didn’t know enough people.

But I knew Jim and Jim knew his parents and his parents knew someone who needed their fence painted. The job was too big and boring for just one, so Jim asked if I would help him. It was the perfect summer job for me. It was only a couple blocks from my house, it was outside, little skill was needed, and I got to spend time with a friend.

From one side the outside surface of a board could be painted, along with the inside surface of the other side. Sometimes Jim and I would paint on the same side of the fence, other times on the opposite side.

We talked and we worked. We talked about girls, sports, teachers, and planned adventures. Sometimes we spilled paint, missed a spot, and went too fast or too slow. But by working together we were able to get the job done without a lot of flip-flopping or excessive name calling when things didn’t go right. And we were just kids.

Kids call each other names, adults label each other, and the meaning is the same. The intent is to damage the other person or group. When an unflattering label or name is attached to a person or a group it hurts the target and also reflects poorly on the person applying the label.

If an argument or position is so weak that name-calling must be resorted to, then silence may be a better option. Now that Michelle Bachman has found herself in first place after the Iowa straw poll I’m waiting to see if her opposition will be called chauvinists or misogynists. After all, some state that those who oppose President Obama’s policies are doing so only because he is black. They must be racists; there can be no other explanation. At least that’s why I hear from some of his supporters.

Tea party members are either “terrorists” (Joe Biden) or “hobbits” (John McCain). It’s difficult to defend or explain away such a charge without getting into a childish exchange of “No, I’m not.” Yes, you are.” “No, I’m not.” “Yes, you are.”

Unless there is clear hard evidence to support damaging labels, let’s do away with them. We may be on opposite sides of the fence, but we should be able to accomplish common goals without painting each other with labels.

And just in case you need to know the color, we painted the fence red. The woman who hired Jim and me, a couple of white boys, to paint her fence, was black. She gave us a chance, and I will never forget that.


Friday, August 12, 2011

Signs

Some signs are easier to explain than others. I have seen hand-painted signs stuck in the ground along country roads that read “Eggs”, “Cucumbers” or some that say “Produce.” I hope the last one refers to things grown and raised for sale instead of a command of “get to work.”

I was driving through Wisconsin the other day with my friend Mark when we saw a sign that almost made us turn around and stop in to inquire, “Kittens $20.” No need to worry, this is not the second column in a series about kittens – this one is more about economics.

Clearly we should have stopped in to satisfy our curiosity about these cats. Instead we chose to theorize. Having seen numerous signs over the years for “Free Kittens,” we wondered if these kittens were special, even rare for this part of the country. Maybe it was just the opposite, perhaps the $20 was offered as an incentive to anyone who would take a kitten. Real money could have been made if the litter was large. Whatever their intent, no cash or cats were exchanged.

The signs seen in the downtown areas of small towns don’t require much thinking to determine their intent; “For Lease,” “For Sale.” The downtowns, those main streets that were a town’s commerce center, are dying as businesses either dry up or move away.

This situation is certainly not new, but it seems to be getting worse. When I was a kid growing up in Belle Plaine the town was much smaller than it is today, and yet in the downtown area there were four grocery stores, two hardware stores, two drug stores, a variety store, two gas stations within a few blocks of downtown, a shoe store, a couple clothing stores and several other businesses. Many of them are gone, or have moved out closer to the highway.

I don’t know for sure why this is happening. I suspect that it is due to several reasons such as shifting traffic patterns, competition, and changing market conditions, but I keep going to back to how Dad looked at supporting local businesses many years ago.

Dad had an office in downtown Belle Plaine and he was disciplined in where he shopped. He shopped in Belle Plaine. When I asked why he didn’t go elsewhere he explained it to me this way: He needed to buy his bread at the local bakery, so the baker would have money to buy a watch from the jeweler next door, so the jeweler could get his car fixed from the garage down the block, so the mechanic could buy his groceries to feed his family and the grocer would be able to keep his store open. He felt a responsibility to these merchants and he didn’t want to break the chain.

Well the chain broke and no business or store is immune. Border’s, the large book store chain, will shut its doors soon. At one time they were considered the big bully on the block that was responsible for the demise of the local independent bookstore. Now, unable to compete with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, they will close their books.

Sure it’s convenient to point and click and shop at one stop, but what will happen to the local retail merchant? This isn’t about me and my silly little office. This is about saving local businesses or soon we may be left with only the big box stores and a mouse to shop with. So please shop local when you can, or at least buy a cat to keep the mice in control. There only $20.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Patience

Patience is a virtue. Perhaps, but I think it depends on the situation. I can be very patient or insanely impatient. For instance, when I am considering a purchase of a limited commodity I do not want to see if it is available tomorrow.

But when it comes to staying power I can linger longer than anyone or anything, including a cat. When Olivia, our resident female feline, has a litter of kittens it’s a challenge trying to find them.

She selects a secret and secluded place. If she suspects you are following her to find her kittens she will not return to them; instead she will bide her time until you give up. But I can be stubbornly patient.

Last year after she had been downsized from her pregnant state I sneaked into the barn after I saw her jump through the missing pane of a window. Being too large for the window myself I opened the barn door. When she heard the door she walked back towards me.

She was being rather coy, but I knew her tricks. I ignored her and went about the business of picking a post to lean on while I pondered. She sat down in front of me and gave herself a bath. After about 20 minutes or so she tired of this and crept over to the firewood pile. Looking around to make sure I wasn’t watching (I pretended to have my eyes closed) she jumped into an old metal tub. There, among the barks and twigs I had saved for kindling, were her kittens.

This year it got a little more complicated. We first discovered the litter in a hollow beneath a bale of hay. But because we had found them she moved them. Finding the second location was not difficult. I spotted her heading to the barn one afternoon, but when she did not emerge from the lilies below the window I went looking. There they were, gathered in the greenery. Of course now that the cache of kittens had been discovered she would move them.

This third hiding place was the most challenging. Taking advantage of my busy schedule Olivia enjoyed a couple weeks of solitude with her kittens. But they were approaching a month old and if we had any hope of having tame barn cats, they would have to be found soon.

Saturday, after my morning constitutional with Buddy the dog, I noticed that Olivia was hanging around the front steps. With the whole day ahead of me I thought “I have you now.” I made some coffee to accompany the toast topped with strawberry jam that had been laid out for me. Taking the morning paper I seated myself next to the window.

While reading how Democrats and Republicans were waiting to see who would blink first over the debt crisis in Washington, I saw Olivia head for the barn. I scurried through the house to a back door so I could sneak up on her. By the time I got outside she had disappeared. One year she had hidden them in the hostas, but that was too predictable so I continued to the barn. Once she spotted me she went into her routine. But once again I waited her out.

Soon she made her way to a corner where there was a large set of warehouse shelves. Among other things on the shelves were a bunch of windows leaning against the wall. When I saw her climb behind them I headed back to the house for the flashlight.

When I returned I couldn’t find her. Climbing onto the shelf and through the cobwebs I rifled through the windows but she was nowhere to be found. Then I heard the sound of a content cat purring. Getting down on my knees I spotted her on the barn floor beneath the shelf. With only four inches of headroom it was a good hiding place.

This time we made the first move. My son Nathan helped me dismantle the shelf and we moved Olivia and her kittens to the smoke house where they would have room to grow and play. All things come to those who wait. Sometimes.