My dad loved junkyards. At first glance, that didn't jive with the very intelligent engineer who built and analyzed electronics in his basement den, the man who worked for the Navy, the one who had a seismic experiment on Apollo 12. But it all comes together when you raise this man by poor parents who lived through the depression and made do with their intelligence and a single acre of farm land. On top of that, my dad loved to make things work.
There was a big junkyard by the old limestone quarry a couple of miles from our house. Sometimes, on a Saturday, we'd all pile into the old pickup truck and go over there. We seldom had much junk to bring, maybe some burned out tin cans at most. Back then, it was common to throw food scraps onto the compost pile and burn the rest of our junk in a burn barrel. It was often my job to go burn the trash and I loved lighting the fire and seeing the different colors that burned. So instead of getting rid of junk at the junkyard, my father found junk and brought it home.
My parents even brought our dog with us when we went there. Now, why would you bring a dog and three kids to the junk yard? I have no idea. But to be honest, I liked going to the junkyard for the same reasons my dad did. You could find some neat stuff. On top of that, we got to sit in the bed of the truck, the wind blowing in our hair on the way there and back.
Once we got there, my dad would walk around looking at things and say, "Look at that couch. Somebody just threw that couch away. Why, there's not a thing wrong with that couch."
"Except that it's been sitting out in the weather for at least a week and you'd never get the smell of the junkyard out of it," my mother would say, her arms crossed and a look of distaste on her face. My mother did not like going to the junkyard. She usually stood at the edge of the huge pile, looking in and never once bringing anything home.
My dad would step up on old refrigerators and washing machines like a goat hopping rocks on a mountainside. I remember him telling me to test to see if it would rock or move before shifting my weight onto it. I liked to trail along behind him, stepping where he stepped, soaking in his excitement. I don't remember finding much to bring home, maybe an old plastic toy here and there, but it was fun hopping from appliance to appliance, trying to keep my balance.
"I'd bet I can get this thing working," he yelled to my mom as he held up an old vacuum cleaner. "I'd bet there's not a thing wrong with this but a broken belt and they threw it away without ever trying to fix it." My dad had a great big grin on his face as though he'd just won a $100 lottery ticket. My mom would be standing back at the edge with her arms crossed, trying not to breathe too deeply.
"It smells," she'd yell over to him. "What if it makes my carpet smell?"
"Don't get down into any refrigerators," my dad said as I wandered beyond him. He was studiously ignoring my mother's last comment. As if I'd get into a small, extra smelly place like that. Refrigerators that had been closed out in the heat with even one thing left in them smelled the worst. I'd heard all this before, that refrigerators locked from the outside and if the door swung shut, I wouldn't be able to open it myself to get out. My dad was Mr. Safety. He had built and installed seat belts in both of our cars, telling us that if the engineers designed it for the astronauts, then it was good enough for him. He also told us that the car wouldn't start until we buckled them. He'd continued talking about refrigerators for a while when I was stopped in my tracks by a " ... DO YOU HEAR ME?"
"Yes, Daddy. I'll watch out for refrigerators," I said hoping he hadn't talked himself onto a different subject. I wondered if I had to worry about Pinky, our dog, as she rooted through garbage led by the rich smells around her. She loved the junkyard too.
After about a half an hour of haggling, my mother finally let my dad load the truck with an old television with no cabinet around it and the vacuum cleaner that my mom was sure was going to make her new carpet smell like a junkyard. I rode home with our free appliances in the back of the pickup truck with the wind blowing my hair and my mouth open in a way that probably looked a lot like Pinky's, face into the wind, eyes streaming tears and a big grin on my face.
After a day or two of fiddling, my dad got both the television and the vacuum cleaner going. All he needed was a belt for the vacuum, like he'd said, and a vacuum tube or two for the television. He had to scrounge for the tubes because of something he explained as solid state. The vacuum may have worked, but my mother never liked it, saying she had to pick every little thread off the floor first and then try to go over it with the vacuum to pick it up again.
The television gave us hours of family entertainment. It was the only television we had until well after my dad died when I was thirteen. There were no knobs on the front. They were probably at the bottom of the junkyard pile with the cabinet the television didn't have. I learned to use a pair of pliers to turn the little white post that came out the front. Someone had to get up to turn that television on and again every time the channel was changed. Are you old enough to remember life before remote controls let you sit on the couch? I was usually that someone and I also had the job of adjusting the horizontal balance. Our television would be okay for a few minutes after you turned it on while it warmed up. Then the picture would start to roll. It was my job, like the guy on the roof adjusting the television antenna, to stand there while they told me what the picture was doing. It was funny that I could actually see the screen as I did it, but somehow, the whole family would join in with "that's it, no, back up, a little more, stop!" Then, after I'd sat back down on the couch, the picture would start to roll again. And on and on it would go. Like I said, that TV gave us hours of family entertainment.
So it is with a little sadness that I realize that no one is allowed to root through the piles at the transfer station, that Craigslist and thrift stores have taken over that function of trading used things. I certainly don't miss the overpowering smell, but I do miss the excitement of hopping from appliance to appliance on a sunny day and hoping to find some small treasure to put in my pocket for the ride home. Most of all, I miss that gleam in my dad's eye, the one that told me he could fix anything, that he could make treasure out of junk.
Thank you for listening, jb
There was a big junkyard by the old limestone quarry a couple of miles from our house. Sometimes, on a Saturday, we'd all pile into the old pickup truck and go over there. We seldom had much junk to bring, maybe some burned out tin cans at most. Back then, it was common to throw food scraps onto the compost pile and burn the rest of our junk in a burn barrel. It was often my job to go burn the trash and I loved lighting the fire and seeing the different colors that burned. So instead of getting rid of junk at the junkyard, my father found junk and brought it home.
My parents even brought our dog with us when we went there. Now, why would you bring a dog and three kids to the junk yard? I have no idea. But to be honest, I liked going to the junkyard for the same reasons my dad did. You could find some neat stuff. On top of that, we got to sit in the bed of the truck, the wind blowing in our hair on the way there and back.
Once we got there, my dad would walk around looking at things and say, "Look at that couch. Somebody just threw that couch away. Why, there's not a thing wrong with that couch."
"Except that it's been sitting out in the weather for at least a week and you'd never get the smell of the junkyard out of it," my mother would say, her arms crossed and a look of distaste on her face. My mother did not like going to the junkyard. She usually stood at the edge of the huge pile, looking in and never once bringing anything home.
My dad would step up on old refrigerators and washing machines like a goat hopping rocks on a mountainside. I remember him telling me to test to see if it would rock or move before shifting my weight onto it. I liked to trail along behind him, stepping where he stepped, soaking in his excitement. I don't remember finding much to bring home, maybe an old plastic toy here and there, but it was fun hopping from appliance to appliance, trying to keep my balance.
"I'd bet I can get this thing working," he yelled to my mom as he held up an old vacuum cleaner. "I'd bet there's not a thing wrong with this but a broken belt and they threw it away without ever trying to fix it." My dad had a great big grin on his face as though he'd just won a $100 lottery ticket. My mom would be standing back at the edge with her arms crossed, trying not to breathe too deeply.
"It smells," she'd yell over to him. "What if it makes my carpet smell?"
"Don't get down into any refrigerators," my dad said as I wandered beyond him. He was studiously ignoring my mother's last comment. As if I'd get into a small, extra smelly place like that. Refrigerators that had been closed out in the heat with even one thing left in them smelled the worst. I'd heard all this before, that refrigerators locked from the outside and if the door swung shut, I wouldn't be able to open it myself to get out. My dad was Mr. Safety. He had built and installed seat belts in both of our cars, telling us that if the engineers designed it for the astronauts, then it was good enough for him. He also told us that the car wouldn't start until we buckled them. He'd continued talking about refrigerators for a while when I was stopped in my tracks by a " ... DO YOU HEAR ME?"
"Yes, Daddy. I'll watch out for refrigerators," I said hoping he hadn't talked himself onto a different subject. I wondered if I had to worry about Pinky, our dog, as she rooted through garbage led by the rich smells around her. She loved the junkyard too.
After about a half an hour of haggling, my mother finally let my dad load the truck with an old television with no cabinet around it and the vacuum cleaner that my mom was sure was going to make her new carpet smell like a junkyard. I rode home with our free appliances in the back of the pickup truck with the wind blowing my hair and my mouth open in a way that probably looked a lot like Pinky's, face into the wind, eyes streaming tears and a big grin on my face.
After a day or two of fiddling, my dad got both the television and the vacuum cleaner going. All he needed was a belt for the vacuum, like he'd said, and a vacuum tube or two for the television. He had to scrounge for the tubes because of something he explained as solid state. The vacuum may have worked, but my mother never liked it, saying she had to pick every little thread off the floor first and then try to go over it with the vacuum to pick it up again.
The television gave us hours of family entertainment. It was the only television we had until well after my dad died when I was thirteen. There were no knobs on the front. They were probably at the bottom of the junkyard pile with the cabinet the television didn't have. I learned to use a pair of pliers to turn the little white post that came out the front. Someone had to get up to turn that television on and again every time the channel was changed. Are you old enough to remember life before remote controls let you sit on the couch? I was usually that someone and I also had the job of adjusting the horizontal balance. Our television would be okay for a few minutes after you turned it on while it warmed up. Then the picture would start to roll. It was my job, like the guy on the roof adjusting the television antenna, to stand there while they told me what the picture was doing. It was funny that I could actually see the screen as I did it, but somehow, the whole family would join in with "that's it, no, back up, a little more, stop!" Then, after I'd sat back down on the couch, the picture would start to roll again. And on and on it would go. Like I said, that TV gave us hours of family entertainment.
So it is with a little sadness that I realize that no one is allowed to root through the piles at the transfer station, that Craigslist and thrift stores have taken over that function of trading used things. I certainly don't miss the overpowering smell, but I do miss the excitement of hopping from appliance to appliance on a sunny day and hoping to find some small treasure to put in my pocket for the ride home. Most of all, I miss that gleam in my dad's eye, the one that told me he could fix anything, that he could make treasure out of junk.
Thank you for listening, jb
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