In a Can Down by the River

You know how sometimes it just takes seeing or doing one little thing and suddenly your mind whisks you back to your childhood and you totally remember every detail about something you did that you had completely forgotten about? That happened to me yesterday. It may take me awhile to get to the story of how this happened, but I’ll get there eventually.

The last few days have been so completely beautiful, weather-wise. I don’t think I could have survived another week of dreary gray skies and snow flurries. I was turning into one big ole grouchy bear (Bill can verify this.) So with the last few days being so nice, I decided to take advantage of it. I haven’t been on any long walks with Champ in awhile, so yesterday and today I put on my running shoes, a sweatshirt, and shorts - yes, I said shorts. I have a philosophy that if I dress like it’s warmer than it is, I’ll trick the weather into thinking it’s supposed to be warmer. I also stuck my fake tulips and daffodils in the flower pots out front using the same theory. We’ll see if it works.

So, Champ and I started walking (actually he runs a good portion of the time.) As I’m walking down the country road, I notice that over the winter, some "people" have taken the liberty of making our little roads their own personal dump. I made a mental note to take a trash bag with me the next time. But then I figured that I could go ahead and at least start picking up the aluminum cans (I have this dream that I’m going to save enough aluminum cans and make enough money to build a garage - hey - I can dream!) I picked up the faded and half-smashed cans with melted snow in them, poured the water out and carefully start piling them up in my arms. By the way, Natural Light seems to be the beer of choice among the litter bugs; that should tell you something about the people that litter...they don’t even drink real beer!

I toted all these cans back to the house and set them in a chair on the deck. I forgot about them for awhile as I chased cats around the yard and through the barn trying to wrangle everyone to get them back in the house. With everyone safely back in their respective places, I addressed the cans. Some were pretty dirty, some had tar stuck to them, and some weren't quite smashed enough. So I put a can on the ground and smashed it with my shoe...and it stuck to my shoe...and that’s when it happened. Suddenly I’m 8 years old and I’m at my neighbor, Les’s house.

Les was an old fella, married to Bessie. Les was an alcholic if I’ve ever seen one. He’d get drunk on a daily basis and sit out in his front yard and talk to himself. One Saturday, he told everyone that passed by that the next day he was going to hold a "Sunday meetin’ down by the river" and that he was going to preach. Needless to say, this didn’t happen, but my family still jokes about it to this day, always ending the story with the phrase, "God love his heart." 

Les and Bessie always had a dog of some sort. For a long time it was a poodle, but their last dog was a chihuahua named Taco. Taco was a smart dog. I heard him say with my own ears the word "river" more than once. Les and Bessie took Taco everywhere. One time they went toTaco Bell in Bloomington and Taco managed to escape from the car. So there they are, in the Taco Bell parking lot, looking under the car saying, "Come here, Taco. Don’t be scared, Taco, it’s alright." True story. You can’t make this stuff up.

So why did smashing cans on my deck remind me of Les? Well, Les not only made a habit of drinking beer, he also made it somewhat of a career. He was a professional can smasher and recycler. He had this long wooden pole that had a rusty, heavy, flat metal attachment on the end. That thing could smash those Pabst Blue Ribbon cans like you’ve never seen. Sometimes we’d help Les. It was fun to try and use the can smasher, but it was pretty heavy for us kids, so we preferred to smash the cans with our shoes. We’d lay the can on it’s side on the concrete and try to make sure that our shoe caught the very middle of the can. That way it would curl up around our shoe and VOILA! Instant tap dancing shoes! Yesterday standing on my deck with a can curled around my tennis shoe, I had to smile thinking of Les, Bessie, Taco, and the carefree summers of an 8 year old girl growing up down by the river in Spencer, Indiana. And yes, I tapped out a little dance....Natural Light style.