I FINALLY KNOW OUR GARBAGE MAN -- READ THIS

THIS IS GARBAGE, NOT TRASH

 It all started with my sister and brother-in-law sending me an obituary notice.  It related the life and death of a person whom I knew mainly as a rival from the other side of town.  I read it with great interest because it was full of truth about the personality of the deceased.  I am thankful that this obituary notice came to me.  I am even more thankful that I discovered many things in the aftermath of the simple act of receiving the email.  Attached to the email was a link that connected to the funeral home and was an opportunity for me to tell the survivors that I had taken note of the passing of this person.  The electronic "guest list" also showed the names of the others who had used it and it even gave everyone a chance to list email address and contact others who did so as well.  So, naturally, I read the visitors list and placed my email address there as well.  Since there was room to leave a comment and a prayer, if I so wished, I made use of that too.  Along the way I saw a name that was very familiar.  The same surname of my boyhood friend from 60+ years back.  So, I took advantage of the opportunity to inquire whether or not this was a relative of my friend.  As it turns out, it isn't.  As it also turns out, neither one of us can shut up.  I write to him.  He answers.  I answer back.  He writes again.  By this time, we know that we never knew one another, despite the surname, but that now that we know one another, we might as well make the most of it.  So we do.  As it also turns out, this is the son of the garbage man I never came to know.  Why am I telling you this?  It's easy.  We have become so gentrified that we no longer have garbage men. They only exist in our minds.  I'm willing to bet that 80% of the students in high school don't even know what garbage is.  I'm willing to bet that they don't know that pork comes from dead pigs who ate garbage to get nice and juicy fat.   I'm willing to bet that people under the age of 40 who are reading this don't know what a garbage man did, never mind who he is.  Here I am chirping away in glee that I have finally come to know the garbage man who had the run in our section of town.  This is a part of my growing up that is being fulfilled.  He is real.  He has a name.  He knows people whom I know.  He knows the guy and the family of the guy in the obituary notice, just like I do.  This person has come to life through the death of a mutual acquaintance.  For me, the deceased was an erstwhile, and valiant rival for supremacy on the baseball diamond.  A rivalry that lives on in the memories of those of us who lived it throughout our youth.  It was young men from two parts of the same town, vying for the pride of being the best for the entire town, not just one part of it.  Some of us didn't like one another.  Some of us did.  I was always an outsider of sorts because I did not attend the local public schools, neither elementary nor high.  But I knew who my rivals were.  Some I respected, some I didn't.  The guy in the obit was one I respected.  He was a left-handed pitcher who could get me out.  He was also a teen-age gentleman who never rubbed it in off the diamond.  You know what?  That's in the obit and it's in the comments from the funeral home electronic sign-in sheet.  His life is a memory of how to be a kind and supportive person.

The garbage man's son and I are going to continue our conversation.  I don't make garbage in South Hadley, Massachusetts any more.  I haven't seen a garbage truck in at least 65 years.   That doesn't matter.  Our garbage man and his son [one of them] have found life in my mind and my heart.  It is a profound source of joy to make such a connection.  I hope that it will happen to all of you someday.