A trip to the town dump ain’t what it used to be. I’m old enough to remember the days when you could find the dump by following the smell of burning trash. There was a constant smudge going at the landfill, and that saved a lot of land from being filled. I suppose that wasn’t so good for the ozone, but Al Gore was just a kid then; we didn’t know the glaciers were melting.

Going to the Smalltown dump as kids was part of our weekly entertainment in those days. Not only was there a big fire and a huge bulldozer to watch, but we never went without my .22 rifle because there were always rats and crows to shoot. It was like going to the county fair, except there were no annoying “carnies” trying to steal my money: “Step right up. Three shots for a quartah heeah. Win the giant teddy beah.” There was none of that; just me, my dad, my brothers, and hundreds of rodents. It was like one, giant, smelly, burning arcade.

I remember only one man working at the dump when I was a kid. Ernie was an old guy, or at least he seemed that way to a ten year old. He wore the same filthy overalls and tee shirt for twenty years. He was a scruffy looking character; he never grew a real beard but always needed a shave. His two teeth were both brown, stained by the hundreds of pounds of Red Man chew he’d consumed over the years. I’m not sure how he chewed anything. His teeth, one on the top right, the other bottom left, didn’t align well enough to be useful. I guess he gummed his food and tobacco.

Ernie wore a Red Sox ball cap with no brim. “Mumumumumumistah mumumumuman,” he’d stutter. “The fufufufufirst thing I do when I get a new hat is cut off the visah. Damned thing just gets in the wuwuwuwuwuway and I’d be nununununuknockin’ it off every fifififififive mumumumuminutes.”

Ernie was entertaining to a kid. He looked funny, talked funny and drove an old Caterpillar bulldozer. What more could a boy want. His personal hygiene left a lot to be desired. I’m sure he smelled worse than the rats, but his scent was well concealed by the odor of burning rubbish.

There was no separating trash in those days—no recycling, reusing, or reducing. The cardboard and paper was burned with the leftover chicken, TV sets, and rubber tires. But, you didn’t have to worry about the fire spreading too far, because the town fathers had the foresight to build the dump near a bend in the river, which not only acted as a fire barrier, but also carried all the toxins downstream towards our rivals in St. Charleston.

It’s a lot more complicated going to the dump these days. There are special areas for recyclables— paper, glass, metal appliances, computer parts— and, of course, there’s the landfill. There’s a building there with a scale to drive onto so they can determine what your truck weighs, coming and going.

That scale got my buddy, Munzie, in big trouble one Saturday. It seems he made two trips to the landfill that day. He went once alone; the second time with his wife, Tiny, who wanted Munzie to take her to the All You Can Eat Pancake Special down at the IHOP on the way home. Now, Tiny is a sweet woman, but she’s not tiny— she’s a “big-boned” lady.

There is something I should tell you about Munzie; he’s never had an unspoken thought. So, on that particular Saturday morning, after he and his Silverado had been weighed for the second time, (most recently with Tiny on board), he made the mistake of doing the math ALOUD! “I didn’t know you weighed 207 pounds,” he told Tiny.

I’m pretty sure he was the only guy at IHOP that morning with a black eye.

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