Trash Day is a Holiday - upcycling memories

By Walter Steinwald. Originally written September 17, 2015.

Image by Walter Steinwald.

​The kids love taking the dogs for their walk…on Tuesday. On all other days of the week it is a necessary tedium, a chore, but on that one day, like a grand opening sale, people line the streets with offerings of all sorts. Trash Day, as far as gifts are concerned, vies with Christmas and Birthdays and surpasses Halloween and all the others that fall in between. Partially this status grows from the weekly repetitions and in part from the mystery of the gifts and the knowledge obtained about our neighbors. Granting reprieves through continuing use or distribution into new memories are the ways the kids see trash. For them rejuvenating and continuing the narrative is much more tangible than buying things (new) that often have little ability to create one.

Sometimes they are amazed that, “Someone would throw this away.” Often they are saddened by their own inability to use so much that is usable. I think if they could drive we would have a great deal more “stuff” in our yard and house. Often what they do literally drag home are; plants (that they saved), cloth, books, any sort of wheel and etc.

It is a way that the kids get to know there closeted neighbors in at least a mild form, to see what they don’t want or what they have used gives quite a lot of information. From the very old to the new, things that were stored for a near generation or the things that were bought yesterday tell the kids stories of the owners and the neighborhood. From the houses that curb things in much better condition than any Goodwill sells to the indescribable rust heaps all give tone and understanding to us lookers on. The things on the latter end are what get a new home. Neither one of the kids really appreciates the new, but instead find value in the aged, very used things. For an example, a seed spreader from about 1950 that doesn’t turn or a tea service with broken handles and handmade contraptions that don’t seem to have an obvious use are all in our home.

​This irony of taking old worn opposed to new shiny things is something I have thought about with some pleasure because I think what they were after is not so much stuff but memories. When they use pieces (pieces because that’s usually what becomes of them) of these things now they remember the house and sometimes even the time of year and the owner. These are precious things and the older and more used they are, the more precious.

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This is one means of striking out against the “more and new” ideology and I think they have seen the staleness of this “throw away” strategy. I take all this to mean they have taken mild but organic measures in fending off this far-reaching and powerful force. Another effect from this desire for memories is (and I mean this within the bounds of a child’s notion of things; they have no manifesto, formally) the appreciation of flea markets and thrift stores far and above the mall.

Living in Pittsburgh gave them an opportunity to browse used items from multi-generational family sales. One such a market was a church sale we labeled the “The Big House Sale.” Here we could spend 2-3 hours browsing and listening and talking to the volunteers. Whereas, with the mall neither of the kids even slow at any of the windows. It’s always speed walking and very precisely aimed to get in and get out. With them, I guess, the value of the thing is compounded with each generation’s use, whatever it may be.

And with little irony, they are much about fixing and repairing. Here we get tangled a bit because many things are engineered to be thrown away after use and so the repairing becomes creating. There is always much frustration when it comes time to throw a thing away. Many things have been “saved” in the hopes of re-using parts or up-cycling it in someway. This, with no surprise, makes a great deal of clutter in and around our home, but the activities that result really are worth the neighborly grimaces.

We made oars from our stair rail for the storage-tub boat, a wagon from a lawn mower for a Christmas present and we use recyclables of all sorts on a daily basis for our school projects. Having so much (junk) stuff around builds a habit over time of creating a thing or using what you have and it’s rather exciting at times, I think. When we begin a project for a school lesson, none of us know quite what the end results will look like or be. We start with a model plan, but it always morphs a couple of times before completion. We might begin with a diorama and might get there, in a fashion, but then before its over we’re wearing masks and decorating the room and our lesson has taken a turn. What I am trying to present is the idea that having and using a large supply of things breeds a creative freedom.

And this brings around to the notion of saving or preserving things in place of trashing them. The kids’ nostalgia is not a longing for “the good ol’days”, not a longing to “return”, but rather a respect for what was before. They are of the mind that there needs to be a service driving about on trash day gathering the possible reusables to be taken to some central place. This would solve problems and create fun in one event. A neighborhood reuse yard, where kids could browse and parents could wince. Why should parents wince? Why should we all have hermetic half-inch lawns instead of playthings that use the outdoor space? The immaculate yard syndrome has many drawbacks for growing kids.

Many of us want our kids to, “Go outside and play.” When the outside is ubiquitously bland, it takes imagination and tools to want to go and then more of both to stay. Why not leave the old washing machine outside, just for a little while or who wouldn’t love to have the old sofa in the yard? We can’t keep all our trash but by reinterpreting “trash” there might be something out there we haven’t met yet.
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It always astounds me, realizing the things with the most memorial content for us are the most plain and basic, like a scarf or sweater or hat, some thing that has absolutely no intrinsic use or value, but to us. I am not sure what we gain from gathering one of these from another or passing ours on, but there seems to be a joy there in place of throwing it in the trash. I wonder if it has absorbed a certain sacredness from the love and constancy it has supported? Maybe this is what my kids see so clearly.