One man’s trash….

I grew up with a father who was a mechanic by trade, and he always did most of the repairs on our family cars himself. I sort of assumed almost all men worked on cars, so it was quite a shock to me when I married my dearly beloved to find out that he did not work on cars and had no interest in learning how. He in turn got a shock because I did not do things like his mother – so we both were in shock for about a year.

At any rate, when we first moved here it was vital to find a mechanic to work on our cars. And we began taking our vehicles to Sidney, who lived very close by and worked on cars out of his garage. Sidney was a good mechanic and he was trustworthy, but he had no concept of time management. Once we left a car at his shop to be fixed and got it back 2 years later.

Sidney eventually retired and moved down the road a-piece, and one of our friends recommended Randy, who has a thriving business in town. Randy is also a very good mechanic and is trustworthy. He also has a concept of time management and has seldom kept one of our vehicles for more than a couple of days, and only then because he had to order a part.

So, the other morning when our pick-em-up truck needed to be inspected for registration and needed a bit of a going over – the antilock brake light won’t go off, air conditioner is leaking coolant, gas can be smelled when the tank is full -- instead of taking two vehicles into town, dropping off the truck, and driving back in my car, we decided we would both go and then walk back, which would give us a 2-mile walk.

It continues to annoy us that people are such slobs, and so we continue to pick up trash when we walk, and we decided to take our trash grabbers and bags and clean up the town a bit on the way home. (I am not slowing down to pick up trash, he says. If I can reach out and grab it without stopping, then fine; if not, then it can stay there…” )

Most of the trash we pick up is from the fast food restaurants (cups for various drinks, lids for the cups, straw wrappers, straws, bags) cigarette packages and the strip of cellophane, lottery tickets, and empty aluminum cans and beer bottles.

Occasionally though we find good stuff. I usually don’t investigate the paper trash that I find along the road, but when I saw this strip of orange on the ground I was a bit curious. Good thing I looked.

When we got back home, Randy had already called and left a message that the truck did not need anything done to the brakes, it would pass inspection; we could recharge the air conditioner many-many-many times for what it would cost to repair the small leak, and “the leak in the gas tank is not dangerous -- just don’t fill up the gas tank all the way…”

And within the next couple of days, we will be heading to the ice cream parlor for a treat (Richard thought I should obliterate the address for some reason).