Saturday, May 31, 2008

Garbage



Hinds County Gazette

Christiansen's Comments

HCG May 29 2008
Over the years I have become somewhat, I don’t know, ashamed, isn’t quite the word I am looking for, self-conscious, might be better a bit better word, about my garbage, trash, rubbish what ever you want to call it. I just have so blooming much of it.

I feel bad about our over capacity land fills…I just hate adding to the dilemma…but I can’t help it…. everything you buy has at least three times more packaging then necessary to contain the article. I suspect the reason the packing is so expansive is so, they have more room to tell us how tasty, healthy, safe, or useful their item is…they don’t use it to give us coherent directions on how to use the apparatus that’s for sure.

Does it seem to you that the more environmentally aware we become the worse the problem gets? This is how trash was handled in Palisade Nebraska when I was growing up. First of all I don’t remember there being that much of it, there was no paper towels, plastic bags, no cling wrap…might have had been some foil, but mostly I remember waxed paper…. milk came in glass bottles when empty they were set out on the porch and fresh milk in sparking clean bottles were left in their place….water was not bought in bottles, it was fine out of the tap….Soft drinks did not come in cans but returnable bottles. Flour came in cloth bags, the cloth bags were then made in to tea towels….Grease, lard, came in metal buckets, they were reused for storage, lunch buckets, sand pails etc…Even egg shells and coffee grounds were not thrown in the trash They were placed around mother’s flowers.

Cardboard boxes, I do not recall many of those ether…when the groceries were delivered they often were in a cardboard box…If they were clean and big enough mother stored blankets and winter clothes in them. If they were real big boxes we kids went to the car bridge flatten them out, sat down on them and slide down the concrete embankment,

Food was not often dumped because of spoilage or just too much of it…something ate it. If we didn’t, the dog did…I think there might have been commercial dog food, but I as I remember our dog ate mostly table scraps….And stale bread was pitched out the back door for the birds.

There was a garbage can in the kitchen, it was neatly lined with newspaper or a big brown paper bag from the grocery store was sat down in it….no plastic bag that ties neatly…just the paper. But when it became full it was carried to the alley and placed in a 50 gallon barrel and when the barrel was full it was incinerated.
You all, I don’t even remember taking out the trash as a daily chore.

Now, if you had things that were to just big to burn in the trash barrel, old broken furniture all such as that…you took it to the city dump and pushed it out….while you were there of course, you poked around in the piles of other peoples cast offs…sort of an early form of dumpster diving….people throw away some pretty neat things….we did not call it that back then but when we took a "Find" home it was “recycling”.

There was an odor at our town dump….it was mildly disagreeable…But not bad enough to cause you to commence gagging. But that was before disposable diapers…back in the days baby dodo was flushed. About the worse I ever smelled was chicken guts and feathers and they didn’t smell all that bad until they were burnt. That’s what happened when the dump got full they burned the garbage and what did not burn they buried….and it started all over again.

Trash day when I drive down the streets of Edwards, I rarely see a pile bigger then mine except after Christmas. I have had so much trash I was too embarrassed to put it all out in one week…caught my self just putting out half…That does not work, I had three as much the next week.

I know you have all seen this, one little plastic shopping bag, handles tied in a knot, placed at the end of a drive way. …That is a week’s trash! How do they do that?

I said all of that, to say this…for years I have had a garbage goal. That being, for me to confine a week’s trash in one garbage can, and have it neatly topped with its lid.


Last week, I achieved that goal!!!!! Yeah!!!! So now I can hold my head high and look even the most hard core environmentalist in the eye.


I know you are just thrilled I shared my garbage with all of you.
Call if you need me.
About the picture..it is of this weeks garbage..I did not take a picture of last week's garbage ...the one where I was able to place the lid on the can... as you can see, I was unable to repeat last week's garbage success...but honestly this is not bad for me...I usually have much more.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Farmers Market Clinton Mississippi And Gordon Cotton

This picture of Gordon Cotton was taken several years ago at a dinner on the grounds at the Old Lebanon Presbyterian Church.
My first Market!!
This was my selling space at the market...I need to work on my merchandising skills...Next time I will do better

Another view of the market...
there was near 30 vendors...all did well!
May 22 2008
Hinds County Gazette, Christiansen’s Comments
I have had a revelation!!!….You know those old ladies that wear the white socks with their sandals, you probably thought they didn’t know any better didn’t you? So did I, until quite recently , but it is not that they don’t know any better, it’s not that at all…they simply do not care how it looks…I know because I have begun doing the same tacky thing….The mornings have been holding a chill, so I put on socks, and slip into my faux Crocs….but as the day warms up, I change to a more airy sandals but I do not pull off my socks…Too much trouble.

I took some of my cement leaves to sell at the Farmer’s Market in Clinton Saturday; I was wearing the much maligned socks and sandals ensemble…. However I don’t know as many folks noticed, because all of my white socks were in the laundry basket with the rest of last week’s dirty clothes. so I put on a pair of John’s heavy dark hunting socks to keep my feet warm….I left my black faux Crocs in North Carolina and the bright green ones, I wear to do my outside work are hopelessly soiled…so I slipped my socked feet in to my sandals, and off I went. The Sandals were Clarks. The Clarks I am thinking may make my tasteless choice in foot wear a bit more palatable… I did pay full price for them…..but the shipping was free!

New thought…
Awhile back I received through the mail, an article, when my eyes landed on it, immediately my gut told me, what I was holding, in my hand, was a genuine relic. As I was staring down at it I went to wishing I had saved a few of them….Thousands passed had through my hands over the years…I envisioned them framed, hanging in the hall….Lighted like art.

It is strange isn’t it, how we do not notice change? Not until whatever it is completely gone…. I guess it happens so slowly that we do not notice its leaving.

What I was holding was a letter… the address had been typed on a real typewriter… I knew who had sent the relic…it could have only been one person, Gordon Cotton, he had told me he does all of his book and newspaper writing, the old fashion way, on a typewriter. He and I do occasionally correspond, but up until this letter, his notes had been hand written.

I ripped open the envelope to see if the message was typed too. It was! I feel I have custody of a remarkable piece….In this age of cyberspace, text messaging and email, a handwritten letter is becoming less common, but a typewritten letter, they are rare to the point of extinction….
.
I would not have thought you could still buy ribbon for typewriter…I do see old typewriter occasionally in peoples homes…but not as a utilitarian functioning machine…but as decorative/ conversation pieces..

I will not call my friend, Gordon Cotton, a relic…But I could with out fear of reprisal from him…he would almost certainly think it a compliment, indeed a term of endearment. Mr. Cotton is not unlike the artifacts pulled from our Southern soils. Gordon southern roots run deep…Born of the south, and barring an act of God, will die contented in the woods of Warren County, down Campbell’s Swamp Road where his life began.
Love to all


Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Just Rambling!


HCG May 9, 2008
I won’t keep you long today. My six day trip to see the North Carolina grands has put me at least two weeks behind with my yard work. Doesn’t seem mathematically possible does it, to be more days behind, then number of days I was gone? The truth be told, I was probably at least 10 days behind when I left….Well to be perfectly honest….I have never been caught up on the outside…..there is just so much to do.

The trip was good; I drove the back roads mostly. The mountains in Tennessee were positively breathtaking the dogwoods and red buds were absolutely putting on a show. And me with out my camera! I was so out done with myself…forgetting my camera…I am almost never with out my camera.

And what I didn’t see driving those little two lane roads was refreshing too. Rarely, if ever did I see the golden arches. Folks tilling and planting their gardens and women hanging sheets on to a clothesline to dry were common sights though.
.
Those little mountain towns seemed to be stuck in another time…a time when the tempo was slower. Maybe those mountain roads with all of the curves and switchbacks have taught the mountain people a certain kind of patience that is not so familiar to the world at large.

I did drive a bit on an interstate; I have got to tell you, it is a mystery to me how there could be anyone left in these United States, who does not believe in miracles….if they drive on those things! The high speed tailgating, the weaving in and out of traffic…not unlike what you see watching a NASCAR race at Daytona. I know there are many collisions on the interstate systems in the USA…the miracle is that there is not thousands more. Folks talking on their cell phones, little old people who can barely see over the steering wheel and the trucks! Those big trucks pulling trailers filled with who knows what, driving at speeds that are significantly over the posted limits.

NASCAR races have become a great passion for American spectators….now everybody wants to be a NASCAR driver.

Well, here I go to get busy.
Call if you need me

PS Thanks for the caring calls, emails, notes and cards concerning my Tag.
(The picture at the top is not of a country road I drove on my trip...it is a Friend's drive way....I forgot to take my camera on the trip.)

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Excitment in Edwards Mississippi!!!!!

Look at the yellow sign....
I had been wondering what it was trying to tell us....

Notice the back 8 wheels are off the ground? Well....our brand new bridge is so steep that anything pulling a trailer will get hung up at the crest.

That folks is what the yellow sign means!!!

Friday, May 2, 2008

Over the Bridge! We GO!!!!







HCG April 24 2008
The long anticipated new Bridge, over the railroad tracks in Edwards is at last open. The ribbon cutting ceremony was this past Wednesday. There was not much of a crowd on hand for what I considered a significant moment in Edwards history…

Perhaps, for what ever reason, it was meant to be a hushed event…but I, quite by chance, found out that it was fixing to open…. Thinking, that I, was no doubt, the last to get the word, left the house early that morning to get ahead of the crowds of interested citizenry, of TV cameras and other media, to stake out a position on the hill in front of the old Lewis house to observe the proceedings. But almost no one came…There was only one reporter…she was from, I believe, the Clarion Ledger if she had a camera I did not see her take any pictures. Ribbon cutting’s usually draw large crowds of dignitaries, but sadly there wasn’t many at our bridge opening.

Mayor Perkins gave a nice speech bringing us up to date on future plans that will benefit Edwards. A couple of guys from the Mississippi economical council spoke…. Then, bless her heart, Pat Siegrest, who thought she was just another interested by stander was called on to say a few words….once she got over the attack of panic brought on by being asked to speak…. Did a bang up job. We, who live in rural Hinds county, even without much notice, can jump in and do what ever needs to be done ….to get the job done. Seeing there was no one to hold the wide red ribbon that was to be cut…Charles Rather and Haley Cannada cheerfully held the west end and Mary Jo Sabinson took the other end.


And in the end it was a very nice event…even managed a parade…if you can call two vehicles going in opposite directions a parade. I t consisted of the first official traffic to go over the bridge, the Mayor and his wife in one car, came over the bridge from the south and Charles Rather came from the north and they met in the middle. And as I was the last minute, self appointed, parade director, I am calling it a parade…..
The bed of Charles’s pick up was full of giddy ladies. I have pictures! What we, the crowd, lacked in numbers, we made up in enthusiasm.

Come to Edwards and see our bridge, I was prepared not to like the new bridge…because I do not except change easily….but the new bridge is pretty…it blends well with it's surroundings

I won’t be here next week…I am motoring, in my new truck, to North Carolina to see Adam and his family.
I will see you when I get back
Gloria