This week has been the Hilltop area’s combination The Price Is Right game show and Halloween for the foraging crowd. Think of it as American Pickers meets Mad Max.
We speak of annual spring cleanup, in this instance that of Westmont Borough.
I was reminded of the phenomenon Monday while picking up granddaughter No. 2 from her school bus and using the occasion to exercise the convertible Mustang.
Turning onto Parkview Drive off Menoher to kill some time, I was greeted by a pack of cleanup aficionados in action.
One, a thirty-something female (a sexual presumption on my part based on attire, etc., but I apologize if I offended someone whose pronouns are scrambled) was parked on the wrong side of Parkview, facing traffic and attempting to force some sort of apparatus into the yawning rear hatch of her SUV.
It was the epitome of the expression trying to cram 10 pounds of stuff into a five-pound bag. It didn’t help that this apparently was not her first visit of the day to a cleanup pile judging by the copious amounts of treasure already in the rear of the vehicle, said items resisting this would-be addition the way Johnstowners should be resisting sneaky efforts to inundate us with various unvetted immigrants.
Even as the woman sought to land her prize, two pickup trucks were working the other side of the street, and generally blocking any chance of traffic passing.
My hand was reaching for the horn button when one truck feinted to its right in a daring move to gain position on a pile, and that allowed an opening that I was able to race through.
Later, while sitting in the driveway of my son’s house awaiting the school bus, some of the very same trucks passed me, multiple times, eyeballing the piles of discarded stuff from his neighbors.
If only I’d have been paying attention I would have known this annual ritual was upon us. For up to a week I’ve seen trucks, some pulling trailers, slowly prowling streets and alleys of the Hilltop.
Just as the proverbial early bird gets the worm, so it is that cleanup veterans know some residents are early to put out their castoff items and it doesn’t hurt to be first in line at the pile.
It all brings back memories of the first cleanup I can remember, as a teen living in Johnstown. Truly one man’s trash could be another’s treasure.
Some scavenged very thoroughly and with great attention to detail and responsibility, putting the stuff back in neat piles. Others ripped through the castoff items, throwing them left and right and not bothering to clean up after themselves – until I noted I had their license plate written down and would be reporting them to the proper authorities for misbehavior.
I also have taken notice of a phenomenon similar to this cleanup that happens around Halloween, that being an abundance of folks from other areas being attracted to the Hilltop area – and presumably Richland – by tales of better candy being handed out. It’s a latter-day spinoff of Spanish conquistadors seeking mythical cities of gold.
I have been told by someone who has participated in spring cleanup picking that the selections are, indeed, better here in certain suburbs.
Our Southmont cleanup is scheduled for late May. But pickers at my place stand to be disappointed. When I throw out something, it is almost always a legitimate candidate for the dump, not something I merely tired of owning.
My presumption is that the various municipalities welcome the cleanup picker crowd, because they lessen the amount of stuff that actually has to be transported to landfills by the legitimate sanitation workers.
It is a symbiotic relationship like that of farmers in India, who live without fear alongside wild lions because the farmers have trained the lions to be alert for farmers making noise when deer are raiding their fields. These farmers, in effect, ring the dinner bell for lions looking to inject a bit of venison into their diets.
The lions, in turn, follow an unwritten code of not helping themselves to the occasional farmer. As long as the cleanup pickers follow rules of good citizenship, and maybe are aware streets are primarily for vehicles going from Point A to Point B, we all can live in harmony.
Sam Ross Jr's site 