Junk Yard Dog or Don’t Bring Back More than You Take…

It all started many years ago when I was pretty young.

There were always junk piles, garbage dumps and wrecked cars scattered around our neck of the woods.

We had a junk pile just north of the farm house about 2/3 of a mile and there were old cream cans, tin cans, rolls of barbed wire and tons of old glass jars.

This was just one of many, most old homesteads had a pile of similar “good stuff” around the old abandoned houses.

I was mainly by myself growing up so I liked to entertain me, myself, and I by digging through the junk piles. I broke enough colored ball jars and pottery to fill a dump truck I’m sure. I just liked to hear the glass break I guess.

About this time I acquired a Sears and Roebuck scooter with a very small engine that I could go about my business of digging in many different junk piles. I traveled all over the country in search of more tin cans to shoot and glass to break.

I cringe every time I’m in an antique store and see the prices of old tin cans and Ball colored jars with the wire lids. There were many old abandoned cars sitting on these farmsteads at that time and parts and pieces of wagons and buggies.

I loved to get behind the wheel of an old car and pretend I was racing down the dirt roads. Many afternoons were spent zooming down imaginary race tracks with Model T’s and other old cars. Long before Mazda and the Zoom, Zoom, I was cruisin’.

When we moved into the little town of 300 people, I thought I’d hit the mother-lode. There was a wonderful junk pile/garbage dump just east of town on the south-side of the Railroad tracks. Here I spent many days and hours amusing myself with old cars and piles of junk like old stoves, refrigerators, electric motors, broken toys and who knew what.

I always brought something home with me, always.

My imagination ran wild, as I could run over the top of many old cars, throw rocks, and yell at the top of my lungs (sometimes swearing). I played war, cowboys and Indians, and managed to entertain myself immensely.

The older I got it never got any better. I collected many things. Old cars sprang up all over the yard as weeds do in a field.

I combed many, many auto wrecking yards and accumulated many parts and pieces, all “good stuff”. I still brought more home from the dump than I took. Pieces of wire, rope, pieces of boards, etc. etc. etc. All “good stuff.”

The story ends this way:

At first you own your possessions, then your possessions own you.. I’m learning, I’m learning.