Recently I received a timely book from the University of Oklahoma Press that speaks of a sub-culture that includes people of all ages and professions including writers, teachers, doctors, farmers, ranchers, persons employed, living from paycheck or bereft of home or income. The book is titled "Going Green: True Tales from Gleaners, Scavengers, and Dumpster Divers," and is edited by Laura Pritchett, a gleaner.
The book contains more than 20 stories with each author's own slant on gleaning and how to go about it. The writing is lucid, humorous, often inspiring, sometimes approaching poetry and is a delightful read. I had no idea what to expect when picking up this book for the first time but soon I felt a kinship with each writer's story.
Gleaning is not just finding things and giving them new life, it's a way of treading lightly on the earth. These stories reflect a make-do, re-do and re-use what our consumer society throws out. I'll let a few of the authors tell their own stories. Following is an abbreviated account of Linda M. Hasselstrom and husband Jerry's gleanings.
"The dog I walk down the alley with is recycled too. Mac is a West Highland white terrier who may have been 5 years old when he was put outside to 'live free.' His hair was so matted it couldn't be combed, so we had to shave him and we found burrs buried in infected wounds in his flesh.
"Walking Mac is my excuse, but what I've really been doing is gleaning the alleys around my city home for 15 years. My neighbors would be shocked at how much I know about their lives from what they discard and how many of their castoffs are now in my home.
"I'm not there to collect usable objects I'm there to learn ... One day I saw zipped plastic bags containing sheets, blankets, and comforters. As I stacked those on the sidewalk, Jerry went for the car. Next came folded clothing; sweat suits in bright colors; T-shirts from exotic places, several hats, pile of sweaters with sequin designs. Finally, I hung into the depths to retrieve a box of souvenir salt and pepper shakers and a gallon tea jar. I must pay attention all the time, knowing today's discoveries may be physical objects or the way a burst of light shines on a leaf."
Linda then sorted out the things that she could use: sheets, blankets and comforters, the rest she donated to a thrift store. "My writing is mostly devoted to convincing people to be responsible, to curb our appetites, to make better choices," she wrote. "But I sometimes feel I am shouting across an immense abyss."
Laura Pritchett is an award winning author of the novel "Sky Bridge," a collection of short stories, "Hell's Bottom, Colorado" and co-editor of and contributor to two other books ? "Home Land: Ranching and a West that Works" and "Pulse of the River: Colorado Writers Speak for the Endangered Cache la Poudre." Her works also appear in a number of magazines. She holds a Ph. D. in literature from Purdue University and lives in Colorado near the small cattle ranch where she was raised.
"'Dive, DIVE, DI --- VE' yips my friend Tim ...100 E. Oak Street. I click down the phone, get in the car and meet him at the given location. His message is code; there is a diving emergency -- a Dumpster so good, so overflowing, so spectacular as to need both of our attentions," she wrote. Inside the dumpster are the trappings of a whole household.
Tim was a geologist until he was stricken with a nervous system disorder that doctors were unable to identify or treat. Tim dumpster dives frequently when Laura accompanies him. The two realize that what they do is socially weird but they don't care. "This Dumpster diving is a funny and strange bond that we share and cherish ... As far as I can tell we dive for four reasons," she wrote.
"First is the environment. As a geologist and prospector Tim knows how expensive aluminum is to mine from the earth. It comes from bauxite and while aluminum is the most common element in the earth's crust, it is also locked-in chemically and must be heated to tremendous temperatures to get out. Manufacturing aluminum cans out of recycled aluminum takes 95 percent less energy than aluminum obtained from bauxite.
"Second is the money. They hold huge garage sales, Tim lives on the garage sales' income which sometimes stretches to his being able to buy necessary medicines.
"A third reason we dive is that we love to find things. The final reason is that we have fun. Unbelievable fun. My kids have come to regard dumpster diving as one of the best possible ways to spend a Saturday..."
Let us all tread lightly on our planet Earth in our journey through the years allotted us.
Outdoors
June 25, 2009
Gleaning, scavenging and diving
- Outdoors
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For the unlearned, old age is winter, for the learned, it is the season of harvest.
--Hasidic saying
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