Recyle/Trash Picking Day: Out With The Old...In With The New Junk

Our township/municipality, Willistown, holds an annual "Drop-Off Recycling Event" for locals to unload their large junk at the township building. We've never participated in the offer...until now! Angela decided it was time to get rid of all her old computers dating back to the mid-90s. So, being the dutiful husband (and one with some new found time on my hand, yeah!) I packed up the techno-junk and hauled it up the road a click or three to the drop off event.

If you know anything about me, you understand (or at least accept, or even just look the other way) that I am a pack rat of sorts. I wouldn't go as far as to say that I am the next subject in A&E's Hoarders show, however I will continue with this cable television programming idea and suggest that I am more in tune with the guys on American Pickers (a great show!). I love thrift stores and flea markets. Garage sales are my sanctuary. And I'll whip over to the side of the road in an instant if I see some curbside crud worthy of a little investigation. What can I say. It's just one of my things.

So I pulled up to the township building, got in line behind a few other Saturday afternoon haulers and was directed around the back to...

...HEAVEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look at that amazing junk! Now, I must come clean: these pictures were taken on the day after the drop off event, so they don't do the event justice at all! I didn't have my camera on the actual day, and I had high hopes that most of the large piles of computers, stereos, televisions and all other forms of electronica garbage remained, but alas, most of it was carted away.

Finding myself in this Mecca of Messiness, I was as giddy as Templeton the rat from "Charlotte's Web", hauling away his trophy rotten egg from one of the geese on Zuckerman's farm. The volunteers at the drop off event didn't take too kindly to us "poachers" sniffing around while they separated the worthless from the even less than worthless, but being that I brought by several old monitors and pc towers they looked the other way when I went a pokin'!

In the end, there wasn't much of anything to take home (Angela breathes a sigh of relief). However, the point of this sort of activity is not so much the thrill of the chase, but the fun of the rootin' around. Don't get me wrong, finding something so totally clutch is a nice end to the game and, in fact, I did find something amazing...at least to me: an old Realistic boombox, circa 1983 and weighing in at (probably) 20 lbs. It's really cool and it works! I like the old stuff, or at least the forgotten forms of media of yester-decade. Plus, it was totally FREE! and worth between $50.00 - $100.00 at auction on Ebay. Now how's that for some good old fashioned American pickin'!!!

Here's a video of my "diamond in the dumpster rough":





-Marty