Taking out the Trash

Post War Maryland was like all of America- new suburbs were everywhere, exploding with new found consumerism- new homes, new roads, new cars, and new families- all living the American dream. Some people had new air conditioning. We didn’t have air conditioning.

The summers were almost unbearable, but we didn’t know that.  I remember the railing in the stairwell being wet with condensation in the morning.  Many nights were so hot and humid, as children we slept in our tent in the backyard. That made the nights bearable and fun. I remember the smell of the oil canvas tent and reading comic books by flashlight. I would also occasionally catch a whiff of our garbage in the backyard  too.

We kept our trash in the backyard- way back, far away from the house where the stench of rotten meat and vegetable garbage could not be detected. (We didn’t have a garbage disposal and composting was unheard of.)  We had town garbage pickup. I always felt bad for the garbage men for what they had to endure. These black men, more old than young, wore bright yellow raincoats to protect themselves from the dripping garbage that oozed out of their canvas tarps. They lived in town, in an all black neighborhood called KenGar. That was short for Kensington Gardens- our trash men all lived there. I remember driving through the neighborhood one afternoon with an older friend who had a car. I couldn’t believe the poverty and the small size of their homes.

Later, when I attended Junior High, I got to know some black kids for the first time. They lived in KenGar. Some guys were nicer than others- like all people. I remember two black friends, Tick and Boojie. Tick was intimidating, a Joe Frazier type, but Boojie was kind hearted- my own fat Albert. Our schools were integrated, but our neighborhoods weren't. One day after gym Boojie pressed me up against the locker. I felt like a beached whale landed on me. Tick stood by and laughed. I was glad Boojie was picking on me and not Tick. Tick had an edge and scared me. He was a trouble maker. Looking back, I admire his edgy personality. I hope he fought like hell to change things.

Getting back to the trash--like all southern communities, it was socially unheard of for white people to carry their garbage cans to the curb. This was clearly not our station in life. These poor black garbage men had to go far into the backyard of every home and dump the trash into their wet, smelly canvas tarps, gather up the corners, and carry it back to the street where they would fling the dripping tarp into the back of the truck. They’d roll the trash off the tarp, give it a shake, and walk to the next house. Plastic trash bags had not been invented. The smell was revolting.

I moved to New Hampshire when I was 14.  My first and most shocking sight was a garbage truck in Manchester with white garbage men riding on the back of the truck. They didn’t have tarps either. They didn’t wear yellow raincoats. They looked like a typical service station attendant, dressed in their clean blue Dickies and wearing baseball caps. I also noticed that white people were required to carry their trash cans to the curb for pick up. Everybody did it- mill workers and doctors. I realized then that carrying trash to the curb wasn’t so bad, even egalitarian really, and I felt sad for the poor black garbage men back in Maryland, and everywhere south of the Mason Dixon Line.