the mountain : of discard

JKemember the junk-
man in the olden days,
who brought his horse
and wagon rolling down
the lane, what, once a
week? And he’d call out
‘to the housewives, “Any .
old-bones, any old: rags,
any old bottles?”

And his voice would rise as
he made two high-pitched syl-
lables out of the “bottles” part.
Do you remember?

The avant garde of recy-
clers,. that chap...» -

. “J had ‘one wonderful month
of summer in. Vancouver's
. West End when I was 12. I'd
come out of the north with just
my mother, . |: -~

It'was the most unfettered
four weeks I'd ever know, as

e lived with mother's sister: ..
nd her three children.’

Everything \ was different for ‘

me.-— the beach, the salt
Water, the casual, unguarded
life, and the mysterious

enchantment of the junk-man. + ~

fhat did ‘he: do with that,stuff?
Today’s s' garbage would send .

At home, back 'i in the north-
em bush, we dug bones into
the’ garden, ‘and all the rags :

ent into mother’s rag-bag,
“ Cans were few. ‘Tean
remember: tobacco came in a
an; and my: ‘stepfather: ‘used
the lids as part of the sh ski poles”

Godley

THE VINTAGE YEARS

Those mason jars were used

and used again. All that was

needed was a new rubber ring.

In our house, the most
demning thing you could say
about a local woman was that
she was a “can-opener cook.”
Women made their own
bread, their own sweets. To

. Offer “bought cake” at your tea

” party was to invite ostracism.
Very little from the table

was actually thrown cut; the

dog would get some, the-

chickens ‘would get some, the
~- rest went into the compost.

And packaging — boy, you
didn’t get everything sealed
_ into plastic. It went into a.
“paper. bag or into the box for
delivery, and the delivery boy
“took the box’ away with him.

-So to this day, if you’re my
“age, you remember that waste
was wicked — nothing went
into the rag-bag until all the
buttons were first salvaged.”

Some’ people said, ““There’s ..
“ more.where that came from.”

, We knew times when that
“assumption failed.
“That's why I I save. the soap.

ends, you know, when it’s too
small and skinny to hang on
to, and it won't stick properly
to the new bar? But the other
day I realized I had so many
they were spilling over, and I
thought of Nicole Parton.

Years ago, when Nicole was

- writing a consumer column,

she described how to salvage
those ends.

1 used to do it regularly, but
got persuaded to the fat times,
I guess, and couldn’t remem-
ber any more. So I wrote her a
note.

It turned out to be pretty
simple. Put a little water into a
sucepan, dump in the soap
and heat slowly.

_. It takes a while, of course.
The soap | use is hard-milled
so it was nearly an hour before
it began to yield.

Boring, utterly, but when it
was over I had four decent-
sized cakes now curing in the
cupboard for a month.

’ Properly done I'd have had
some of those plastic soap- -
dishes you buy for your travel
bag, but I forgot, so | made do
with a deep butter dish, a rel-
ish dish and a couple of other
makeshifts. A thin rab with
oil, first.

Pretty trivial, | guess, rescu-
ing four bars of soap from the
mountain of discard we daily
contend with. Doesn't begin to
make a dent.

But when we here in the

'.. city have to truck our. garbage

all the way to Cache Creek to
put it out of our sight, we’re
only acknowledging that there
has to be 4 revolution some-

"time, some way to persuade us

that consuming has‘a price that
we're reneging on.

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