Saturday, October 8, 2011

The Dump

This post has nothing to do with my time in Fairbanks, but I wanted to share.

When I was a child, my sisters and I loved going to the dump with my dad. We piled into the front seat of his pickup and off we'd go to the dump. We loved looking through the discarded junk, finding treasures for our playhouse. Sometimes on the way home, we'd stop and get a coke.

It eludes me as to why we thought it was so great, but we did. I even had a special "going to the dump" outfit. A turtleneck shirt and corduroy pants. Oh yes. 

View of the Napa Valley from Cloverflat Landfill

My mom didn't understand our fascination with the dump. Since everyone was raving about it though, she thought she'd see for herself what all the fuss was about. So one day she rode in the pickup with my dad to the dump.

In those days when you went to the dump you backed your truck right to the edge of the landfill and chucked your garbage in with everyone else's. On my mom's venture to the dump, dad as usual backed the truck up to the line of fill. Mom opened her door and stepped out. Lying at her feet was a dead horse. She promptly got back in the truck and never ventured there again. This may have been karmic retribution for her church faux pas.