At work today the contractor was loading up his truck to make a trip to the dump when it triggered an old memory-- the times Dad would come up to me and utter those eleven magical words, "I'm heading to the dump, do you want to come with?" Are you kidding me?? Do my feet smell?? The only thing for me better than going to the dump when I was a kid was Christmas morning and even that's debatable...and coincidentally the two of them came around with about the same frequency every year.
I guess it was called the dump first before it became land fill and now the transfer station but it will always be the dump to me. We had a '66 stepside Chevy pick-up and Dad would have it loaded with garbage from a construction site he was working on and crap from around the house. It was kind of a bonding thing because it gave me an opportunity to spend some quality time with the old man--almost as good as the fishing trip but that's another blog.
We lived in North Burnaby and the dump used to be on Kerr Rd. just off of Marine Drive. It was probably about a twenty minute drive from where we lived but when you're a kid that seems like forever...are we there yet? You would have to make a short drive down a gravel road off Kerr and pull up to the to a glass pay booth, I'm not sure how much it was but Dad would pay and we'd head inside to the promised land, awesome.
Everything about the dump was cool. The hundreds crows and the seagulls I never got to see very often--there weren't nearly as many crows then as there are now and seagulls pretty much stuck to the ocean. The smell of garbage mixed with the smoke from all of the burning fires, watching the garbage trucks arriving and dumping their loads and the bulldozers pushing it around. And there was still the anticipation of finding some hidden treasure-- a total assault on the senses.
Dad would have to back the truck up to what seemed like a cliff, it literally was a "land fill" and you had to get as close as you could to make it easier to get your load in the hole...I said,"Pardon?!?" After he did I would jump in the back of the truck and help shovel the trash out, knowing that the sooner I did the sooner I could treasure hunt. Sometimes there would literally be boxes of stuff you could go through, there wasn't Craigslist or estate sales so people simply took their stuff to the dump after spring cleaning or a death in the family.
Comic books, magazines (Playboys), old toys, fridges and stoves, small appliances, giant rats- the dump had it all. One time I came home with a whole bag of strange marbles, many I'd never seen before... date cobs, steelies and these pure black and yellow ones --it really was like finding buried treasure. Another time I found this box of miniature steel army men, the hand painted kind, including horses, cannons, drummers etc. Dad figured they were probably worth something so he said I could take them as long as I didn't leave them out in the backyard but you know exactly where they ended up.
Anyhoo, the dump made me think of the top ten things I dreaded hearing when I was a kid...
10. "It's about time I trimmed those toenails."
9. "Let me change that bandage."
8. "It's time for bed."
7. "This won't hurt a bit."
6. "You're lying."
5. "I'm disappointed in you."
4. "No Coke, you'll rot your teeth right out of your head."
3. "Stay in the yard 'til 9 'o' clock." (AM on the weekend)
2. "We're going to Nana's house."
1. "We're having a boiled dinner." (Mom didn't have to tell me, I could smell it when I came in the back door. A "boiled dinner" consisted of one of those gawdawful cottage roll hams, the kind wrapped in that mesh rope, boiled in a Corning Ware pot with side dishes boiled cabbage and potatoes... the only saving grace was the potatoes.
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