Our little town had a wonderful dump where people brought the stuff they didn't want and I knew people who wanted that very stuff. Some people made a hobby of visiting the dump every week. I suppose it is more sophisticated now as it is called dumpster diving.
Even my aunt's husband came home with his little treasures rescued from the dump. Getting something for nothing always made a person feel good.
I remember having a neighbor who furnished their whole house with stuff from the dump.
The chaise lounge was especially interesting, upholstered in real leather! Who in their right mind would throw that away? Who ever it was they knew someone would find it and put it
to good use.
These neighbors were in the process of building a house next to my folk's home. They had lived in a caboose before moving in. Yes, it's true! I don't know how a caboose came to sit right in
the middle of a residential section of town. And somehow it disappeared after the neighbors moved into the house next door to me. Something about zoning, I suppose.
Our new neighbors were quite interesting. The mom played the piano by ear. They hadn't found a piano at the dump yet, so she would come over and play our piano. She was the mother of two teen-agers. The girl could jitterbug really well and skate with one leg held up in the air behind her and was a champion swimmer. Such talent was awesome. The boy played the guitar and got expelled from high school for a spell. Not because he played the guitar, but because he skipped school so often, I guess. The war came along and he enlisted in the Navy and made it a career. When he got out he became a executive in the McDonald company, owned a beautiful
house in Las Vegas and came to our neighborhood reunion in the sixties and danced with me. So I always tell people I danced once with a McDonald big shot (who once lived in a caboose).
Nice story! Everyone likes to get free stuff, even when you don't really need it!
ReplyDeleteBe sure to dumpster dive in the better neighborhoods. You never know what little treasure you might find. I think that is how freecycle.com got started
ReplyDeleteI learned to "dumpster dive" from an early age. Not having money to buy what I wanted, finding discarded radios, lumber, machinery, telephones, etc. was my only other option. One day I found a .38 caliber handgun. It had a bright chrome finish. I looked through my collection of ammunition (also found), but could not find any .38 cal bullets. I don't know what I would have done if I had the right shells. The gun was quickly forgotten about and lost along with all my other scrounged possessions. Despite limited financial resources, I loved my childhood. I was blessed with so much compared to today's kids.
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