Sunday, February 08, 2009

2/08/09 THE RAG MAN COMETH



Sunday, 8:15 AM. 20 degrees, wind WNW, calm, but puffy white clouds are moving fast high up.
The photos are of the Bayfield Town of Russell Recycling Center. The BRRC is a multiple municipality recycling and garbage collection center, which like the Post Office, is a sure place to meet friends and neighbors. Garbage is accepted and compacted at $2.50 per large bag, and membership at $15 per year allows unlimited recycling. Contract pickup is also available in Bayfield, but I prefer the BRRC as less expensive and more practical. Like most folks our age, Joan and I have been recycling all our lives…paper and scrap drives in school, saving aluminum cans to sell or for redemption, collecting metal of various kinds to sell by the pound at the junkyard. In our youth our cars were kept running with parts scavenged at the junkyards. A beer party might entail searching the basement and garage for junk to sell and bottles to redeem.
When I was a youngster the rag man would come every few weeks, driving his decrepit horse and wagon through the alleys crying “Rra….gks” and we kids would holler “What do you eat for breakfast?” and he would reply, “Rra…gks” much to our childish delight. Housewives would emerge with old clothes, towels, etc. no longer useable and they would be weighed and purchased by the rag man. Now that was recycling!
You don’t need government programs to recycle. All you need is the incentive of hard times.