And then I wrote...
by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"
... that as the weekend approached, it became clear to me that one of the 39 gallon garbage bags would not be enough to handle the load come Monday collection, so a second was started.
Since I live alone, I usually get by with one sack, and sometimes that is only half full.
But it is that time of the year that always reminds me of the days when one man with a horse (or mule?) pulled an open cart used to collect garbage around the city of Waukon.
This time of the year, you could see cornhusks and corn cobs and tomatoes and pepper “guts” and cucumber peels and melon and squash rinds in his cart. He fed his pigs with those things, which would not be allowed today on a farm so close to town.
He carried the stuff from homes in a metal bushel basket.
Today, garbage is sacked and never seen by the collector, and on two-sack days, not even touched by human hands at the source, with the truck’s lift doing the work.
A much neater system.
Is it okay to feel a little pride in the number of bins for recyclables also in use in the city?
Along with the Postal Service and parcel services and the daily newspaper carrier, we owe a debt of gratitude for their services.
I was less enchanted to learn that the government is paying $2,400,000 to move 450,000 clams from the Mississippi River area where a new bridge is to be built. Math is not my strong point, but doesn’t that come to something like over $5.25 per clam? I realize they are worth saving, if for no other reason than that they are like canaries in coal mines as indicative of living conditions in their river element. One of the clam types is called the Higgens Eye, and I knew from somewhere that that was a simplification of that clam’s real name. The story provided the real name, lampsilis higginsii, which I presume is Latin. Which, I suppose, could make it worth over five... clams!
The national press cartoonists have a field day with Donald Trump’s orange hair. I keep waiting for them to be as amused as I am about Hillary Clinton’s wardrobe choices. Every time I see her with those tunic-like tops, I am reminded of Chairman Mao or the great leader of North Korea, Kim... something.
I own one Guayaberra shirt, and once had a couple Philippine formal dress shirts, called, I think, Barong Tagalogs. They are loose fitting and are not meant to be tucked in, so therefore, these days, at least, I appreciate the fact that they ease the evidence of a pot belly!
I ain’t sayin’ that’s why Hillary wears them, but if I was an editorial cartoonist, I might graphically suggest something like that.
