TRASHY THOUGHTS

Ah, my dear blog visitors, I feel a ramble coming on,-- you know, when I wax poetic and talk about the way it used to be? Every week on “trash day” when I look down the street at all the trash receptacles waiting for the rounds of the garbage trucks, I think of the way it used to be on the farm where I grew up. Everything, yes, every thing was used in some way. Potato peelings, apple cores and such were tossed over the fence into the field for the birds. Table scraps were fed to the dogs or other varmints. Papers and magazines were burned in the trash barrel, except for old Sears and Roebuck catalogs, which were put to use in the outhouse (sigh), sad but true. Corn cobs were the fuel for my mother’s cook stove. Worn out clothing was pieced into quilts or comforters, or torn into strips and made into rag rugs. Any glass container was washed and saved for mother’s use when making jelly or canning vegetables and fruit from the garden. Any cooking pot or pan that had sprung a leak was immediately turned into a flower pot. At the back of the lot, behind the machine shed, was an old round water tank that had sprung a leak, and into it we tossed odd pieces of metal. In all the years of my growing up, I don’t think it ever got full. I passed the local Goodwill Store a day or two after Christmas, and was amazed to see a line of cars at the back dropping off old stuff---which of course had been replaced with new stuff for Christmas. We must have our stuff. In the present economic climate, it might be good if we all began to practice a little more thrift and weren't quite so trashy.