Category: Photographs

Dump Couture, and Other Stuff

I love going to the dump.  Even when I don’t want to go the dump – when it’s 4 degrees out and I can’t feel my fingers or it’s blazing hot and the stench is enough to knock me over – the journey is always instructive, and often hilarious.  People who have their trash picked up never understand the appeal of a dump run, never know the fun of being accosted by some intrepid soul running for electric light commissioner trying to scare up a few votes, the satisfaction of getting to push the button on the corrugated box crusher, the friendly waves of the dump guys in their orange tee shirts, or – best of all – the sweet voyeurism of viewing the outfits that people wear to get rid of their trash.

Most  folks seem to go straight from bed to the garage to the dump, maybe stopping at Dunkin’ Donuts on the way.  PJs, slippers, flip flops, and sweats that are way too big or too small are the uniform, unless of course it’s Saturday morning and everyone is in soccer stuff (watch out for the cleats).  No shaving before going to the dump.  It’s a rule.

There are  a few people who come to socialize (they stand right in front of wherever it is I want to go and talk forever) but the standard rules of Main Street etiquette do not apply – if someone doesn’t make eye contact with you, they have the right to remain invisible.  People I invite to our Christmas party might get only a nod at the dump, if that.  It is a unique kind of personal space where you are practically required to be surly – it is the narcotic effect of the scent of rancid milk, stale beer, and wet cardboard.

But it’s not just the parade of fashion or the need to get rid of our trash that keeps me going back.  I think I began loving Groton when I learned that the deposits that we don’t collect on the bottles and cans we bring to the dump are redeemed by the town and put toward the 4th of July fireworks display (they don’t do this every year, but they’ve done it several times).  I learned this from the dump guys, and they are as happy in their work as anyone I have ever seen.  And they are pretty enlightened for dump guys, too, not hesitating to correct you on your recycling habits and even going a bit farther.  Today one of them greeted a man who pulled up in a pickup with his daughter in the front seat, and yelled in half mock horror “Is that a cigarette is see?!  What’s the matter with you, smoking with your little girl in the truck! Don’t you know the dangers of second-hand smoke?”  Unfazed, the Dad smiled and said “I have the window open – Jeez!”  That wasn’t good enough.  “Put it out, man, put it out now!”  The guy got out of the truck, flicked the cigarette and came round the bed of the truck – to shake his friend’s hand.  Then the little girl hopped out to go help push the button on the box crusher.

And of course there’s the trash itself.  Is that a week’s or a year’s worth of Bud Light cans?  Is this a throw each glass bottle as hard as you can day or a dump it all at once day?  My boy takes a wine bottle and uses it as a bat to hit the seltzer cans into the bin (someone else is probably blogging about that).  Do they really think they can put an entire gas grill in the tin can bin?  If you can’t read the number of the bottom can you just guess?  What do they do to people who don’t use the designated Town of Groton orange trash bags?  Throw them in?  And who made that airplane out of Pepsi cans?

Finally, the drive back and forth is a kind of barometer of how my week has gone.  Am I going to the dump to people watch or because I absolutely must get out of the house?  Is this the highlight of my day or an errand to run before moving on to better things?  It is a sad testament to my spiritual life that I visit the dump more regularly than I do the Church, but the conversations I have with God on either pilgrimage is the same:  I am thankful for my life, I pray for more patience and focus, and then I get rid of all my garbage and go home, lighter and better for having made the trip.

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Angry Garage

 

When I asked my daughter what she thought of this photo she said, “It’s yelling at me.”  I think so, too.  Like a cranky old man:  “Hey you kids, get off of my lawn!”  Maybe it’s the door that needs paint.  Or the quality of the junk inside.  Or maybe that it has to face the street instead of the rolling hills out back.  Whatever it is, I love the expression, and the toy horse loitering around the side, too.

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A Love of Bricks and Ivy

The stucco house I grew up in had ivy all around one side and I admit to being less charmed by it then because pigeons were always flying in and out of the ivy and dancing on the air conditioner in my window.  But once I moved south to St. Louis and then out east I fell in love with the red right angles and the fluttering greens vying for attention, and there is nothing like the solid, cool  interiors and dappled light of a brick house on a sunny day.

I drive by this house situated behind a wall on what was once a vast estate (now merely a large one) all the time but there is no safe place to stop and take the photo, so on this stunning May morning I parked the car in town and walked a mile to get this and many shots I have been meaning to take.  More to come.

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Spring Thaw, with a Vengeance

Last week the roiling Nashua River escaped its banks and pummeled the abandoned mill buildings it once powered.  Ten inches of rain fell over two days during the second powerful storm to hit New England in a month, taking all of the season’s snow and the contents of many cellars with it.  This mill wall, with it’s bricked up window and stars whose purpose elude me, says so much about how much we struggle to manage nature.  Harnessing and fighting its power at the same time; eventually giving up and letting it loosen and take the bricks with it downstream, one at a time.

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Trees in the Calm Before the Storm

I posted a photo from the Crane Estate last weekend, and since then, like many places in the world this winter, nature chose to rearrange the landscape.  A fierce storm with high winds took down all the pines at the top of this scene – the ones near the green boxes near the mansion.  You can see here (above) that those white pines are top heavy, and torrential rain thawed the earth beneath the shallow root system and they toppled like toothpicks in hurricane-force winds.   The view below is the what you see when your back is the mansion – those trees sustained little damage, according to the news – when you are at the top of the hill closer to the house you can see the Atlantic.  Hundreds of trees were toppled on this unique property – the grand allee is the only vista of its kind in the U.S. –  that we traverse several times a year and have come to think of as part of our own family history.  We have photos here of our children at every age, and I carried each of them, summer and winter, in backpacks, on my shoulders and on my hip, miles and miles on its trails back and forth to the beach.  The land will heal, new trees will be planted (a restoration was already underway), and we will keep going back, and take more photos.  But we never know when that mighty wind will return.

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Happy Hour at The Package Store

Local color:  in New England they often call the local liquor store the Package Store – the Packy, for short – where you can get your drink in a package to take with you, rather than served to you.  Ray’s, with it’ s clapboard facade and window boxes, is a favorite.

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Winter Window, Ipswich

This is the cottage at the entrance to The Crane Estate in Ipswich, Massachusetts.  The colors in the roof tiles, the curve of the wrought iron entwined with the ivy and the gnarled trees in the winter sky all remind me of a faded photograph from another time, even though I took this today.

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First Season Beauty

 

Days like today remind us why we endure New England’s long winters.  There’s nothing like a morning in which the snow is so white it reflects the bluest sky.  Later on it will be warm enough for a walk, but for now, it’s time grab the coffee, pull the chair up to the window, and open the solar panels in our heads.  Recharge.

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Winter Moon Over Gibbet Hill

This is one of my favorite spots in Groton, Massachusetts.  Whenever the sky is unusual, there are beautiful views from every angle, and when it is windy and bitterly cold, as it was last night, you can take great photos without even getting out of the car.  This full moon is purported to be the brightest of the year, but I don’t understand how they can know that, unless it’s just because it is so cold in January that the atmosphere is extra clear.

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Winter Light in Florence, 1992

A city, a camera, and a clear winter morning.  Perfect.  The crisp light of winter and the shadows of good architecture trump the graffitti on the walls.

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