You campers, be careful what you wrap in aluminum foil.
By Tom Poland: A Southern Writer
Let this harrowing tale serve as a warning. Be careful of what you wrap in aluminum foil.
A British judge stopped a man’s 12-year legal battle to dig up a hard drive storing 8,000 bitcoins worth $750 million from a landfill. James Howells claims his ex-girlfriend mistakenly trashed his hard drive in 2013 and it ended up in 350,000 tons of garbage. Someone had to recover his fortune.
Just like that, my days as a garbage man burst into life with startling clarity. While attending the University of Georgia, I worked two summers doing whatever needed to be done at Elijah Clark State Park. A major duty involved the ritual of gathering garbage from campsites. First thing in the morning, we’d drive a Massey Ferguson tractor from campsite to campsite and throw garbage into a large wooden trailer. The destination? A large pit, which every so often we’d douse with gasoline and burn everything from discarded fishing gear, broken skis, to clumps of aluminum foil holding everything from charcoal embers to food and more.
One broiling summer day Mr. Frances Fortson, park superintendent, summoned all the garbage men to a meeting. We faced a crisis. The evening before a woman had wrapped her false teeth in aluminum foil after a meal of fried fish, yellow rice, and salad. A family member had tossed the foil into the garbage. Mr. Fortson gave us garbage men—always at his disposal—a directive.
“Find that woman’s teeth.”
To the garbage pit we went, not to look for bitcoins but a bite machine. We descended into a festering accretion of refuse, grease, fish guts, soft drink bottles, you name it. We waded into and through it all as the toothless woman stood over the pit shading her eyes and peering at her would-be heroes who stood waist deep in meal remnants and refuse of days past, which the blazing Georgia sun had cooked it into a fine stew. Our goal? Evidence of fried fish remnants, yellow rice, and a wad of aluminum foil.
“Here’s some fish scales,” a garbage man said.
“Scales? Do you see any yellow rice?”
“No ma’am.”
“I see some yellow rice,” said another.
“Do you see any aluminum foil?”
“Yes, ma’am. Plenty.”
He opened up scrap after scrap of foil, shaking out their contents. Onion peelings, rotten vegetables, potato leftovers, and in one case a snarled bird nest of monofilament spilled out.
Another garbage man, holding up a skeleton like the Bonefish restaurant logo, said, “Looks like a bass.”
“No, we fried crappie and bream,” the woman shouted back.
And so it went. We took a break around 3 o’clock, then returned to the pit. By now the heat had built and the work was taking its toll. The woman maintained her vigil on the rim.
“Ma’am, here’s some fried fish, yellow rice, and salad stuff. Pink napkins too.”
“Yes, yes’” she said excitedly. We used those. Do you see any aluminum foil?”
“Yes ma’am, looking at a clump right now” and in a scene reminiscent of Bill Murray cleaning out the pool in Caddy Shack, he reached down and pulled up a clump of aluminum foil and opened it.
A true hero held up a fine set of choppers to the immense relief of the jubilant woman on the pit’s rim.
For the rest of us, it was just another day in the life of a garbage man.
