Kipple & Rocks

Today we wrent history from the ground. We used winches and motors and sweat. We peeled back the Earth and picked the kipple from its wounds. Now we're nursing the hole with water and sun.

A boilerplate, a cast-iron skillet, a can for lamp oil, sheets of stained metal, nuts, bolts, spikes and pound after pound of broken glass descending brown layer after browner layer, a century deep in my backyard's mud: we hauled a Christly load into the trailer, and drove it all away.

The man at the dump was affable and gay. Rural homosexuality charms me, because it demonstrates how far our culture's tolerance has come. I'm pleased the dump man can deal with trash-hauling mammoths all day and not worry about being beaten to a pulp over his lisp.

He told us how to separate our junk, and pointed out where it should be filed as he played with his moustache. The best part was hucking metal things on the scrap pile and thereby making a lot of noise. I took out the front of a washing machine with a deft launch of what looked like an old fender, spidering the safety glass and knocking the metal casing free in an avalanche of smaller debris.

I anticipated even more fun when we threw the broken glass, but in that pile the foundation bedding was made of soiled diapers and old vegetables so it was not nearly as satisfying as it could have been -- the glass didn't so much shatter as slap wetly into place. The smell was eye-burningly nauseous.

Our village's dump is young, and there's a lot of room to wander around. The piles of trash are few and far between. The hill overlooks a farm valley, blooming now after days of hard rain. Overhead the gulls wheel endlessly.

On the way home to our old schoolhouse Old Oak and I filled the trailer with big stones, to make a ring around the firepit in the our yard. We paused and tried to look nonchalant as a police motorcycle drove by, on the off-chance that the constable should take an interest in who actually owned the rocks and rubbish at the side of that farmer's field we were helping ourselves to.

We called it quits before the trailer was full. We were pooped -- Old Oak because he's seventy years old, and me because I'm a uncalussed white-collar worker who enjoys a sedentary lifestyle replete with treats. Never the less, when you live in the country not every challenge can be addressed with a mouse click; sometimes old fashioned exertion is required. (At least it is until I can get my hands on some decent robots.)

The world is alive again. People who don't know winter can have no real love of spring, I'm convinced. How could they appreciate the glory of it all without the long death of winter for comparison?