On top of the Scrap Heap!

Much thanks to Paul McCrone for escorting me through Northeast PA's premiere scrapyards last weekend. One in particular inspired me to make this declaration: I'm in love with scrap yards and have finally found a purpose in life. I only dream of digging through mountains of rusted metal. Next visit will include some photos of the bleak landscape of twisted metal half-covered in frozen snow. Perhaps a new lamp or two from the wreckage of a dumped machine will have been crafted by then too, completing the new life cycle from scrap-heap to my living room. And, with any luck, your living room! Look at my lamps at ilampe.com!

As I was returning by bus, I couldn't carry much back to NYC, so I limited myself to two oddly shaped, hole-pocked metal pieces. When I lifted them on the scale, the scrap man, by no means old but certainly past middle age, scratched his head while surveying the weight, muttered, "3 bucks." I quickly pulled out a few crumpled bills and assured him I would return soon. "Don't worry `bout me, I'll be here for the next 20 or 30 years." I nodded, and started putting my purchased junk in my shoulder bag. He then barked, "Do you know how long I've been here?" .... "No, I don't." Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything because, reflecting on it now, it's really a rhetorical question. Unless I had some prior knowledge or was psychic or really lucky at guessing I could've ventured an answer. He replied, "51 years." There was no way this guy was in his 70's. Reading my facial response, he muttered, " I've been working here since the age of 9." I found it strangely reassuring that child labor laws were still broken in the now-defunct seat of the anthracite coal empire.