The dump

Ryan just left to take the girls to the dump. My kids have never been to any sort of dump so I insisted that he take them today. You can't call it a childhood unless you've been to the dump with your dad. I grew up loving dumps. It's true. I have fond memories of my childhood trips to the dump. My Grandma Wilde lived on a farm and her property bordered the Welling dump. Oh man, that place was a treasure trove of unspeakable delights. We would wander over there unsupervised and dig through trying to find the perfect thing we had to have. Then we'd take our treasure to one of the old grain bins we used as a fort and "decorate" it with our finds. I remember one time finding a box of rotten tomatoes and we had a blast throwing them at things. We were easily entertained.

When I worked for the Town of Magrath in the summers, one of our jobs was to empty all the town trash cans. This meant we got to go to the dump about once a week. By then Alberta had converted all their dumps from open holes to a building that had a trailer at the botton. So you back in, dump your trash over the edge into this trailer that would be taken to some mysterious "super dump" or whatever. Harry the Indian (yes, we were very PC back then) was the "dump master" and I think he liked the dump just as much as I did. He had a little table set up with his best finds on it. His favourite cowboy hat was actually one my friends dad had thrown away. He had a Book of Mormon (he wasn't Mormon) on the table and it had another fellow worker's name in it. My favourite was a picture of the Alberta temple in a puffy cloth frame, the kind we all made in Young Women at one time or another, and town worker Deanna recognised it as hers. I know others out there have similar great memories of trips to the dump, so feel free to share.

My brother was kind enough to send me a picture of the Magrath dump. Thanks!