Garbage

Garbage - appealing title for a post, isn't it!

When the HUGE trucks back into our narrow driveway and the mechanized arms lift the trash containers into the air, I sometimes think about garbage through the years :)

The first garbage collection I recall - Mr. Dennison (not sure of spelling) came to our house on Oak Street with his horse drawn cart to pick up our garbage. I don't know how long that went on. 

This is part of the Holton backyard in March 1956. 

The barrel on the left shows how we got rid of garbage for a long time. We burned it in this barrel in the back yard. What did we do with the noncombustibles? Is that what Mr. Dennison and his horse picked up? At some point we could no longer burn trash. That probably happened about the same time we had to quit burning leaves in the street. 

Dad used to talk about burning trash in the barrel in the alley behind their house on First Street. Seems that one time he and his brothers got a bit carried away and the fire department had to be summoned. 

I don't ever remember using garbage cans at Oak Street. Dad built a trash bag holder on the back porch. It was easy to open the back door and discard trash without having to go outside. 

Raccoons were a challenge on North Street. It took us a while to find raccoon-proof containers. 

When we lived on North Street, Worthington started recycling. There were rules about what could go in the garbage can, yard waste can, and two kinds of recycling bins. We also had a compost bin at North Street. 

Now in Kirkland we're back to two containers - garbage and recycled. 

*****************

Notes: My father built the fort, the ladder, and the slide. That's the Farrar/Reynolds/Louden house in the background. Perhaps the young tree in the front is one of the hammock trees. Some time after this picture was taken forsythia bushes grew in great abundance in the corner of the lot, behind the fort. We had play spaces in amongst the bushes. I wonder if my mother planted the forsythia in that spot. Sometime in the 1950s trumpet vine grew up and over a trellis between the Farrar back yard and vacant lot. 

******

*March 25, 2015 - Name corrected after reading post on Facebook page "You Might Be From London Ohio If ..." John and Gertrude Dennen lived at 84 Mound Street in London. He had a "big wagon and old white horse" and picked up "junk." According to posts on the page Mr. Dennen used what he could and burned the rest. He passed out candy to children and gave them rides on the wagon.