TOWNSHEND — Some people love to travel. They'll tell you about the light in Venice or April in Paris.
Me, I like to go to the dump.
While the transfer station might lack the attraction of a major European city, it has an appeal all its own. It's one of the few places where you can let go of your excess baggage.
In an age of computers and surveillance cameras, the transfer station is one of the few places where you can make a clean break from the past. You leave lighter, less weighed down by the material world.
Of course, none of this would be possible without the dump attendant. He is an unsung American hero, a reliable sherpa among mountains of solid waste.
It's a high calling, one that demands fortitude. In summer, he battles heat and horrible smells. In winter, he braves icy roads to stand next to the compactor, a frozen sentry in the war on clutter.
* * *
Back when I was a kid, the dump was still called the dump, not the transfer station. It was little more than a ravine by the side of the road where you chucked your trash.
A scruffy, unshaven man with bags under his eyes would greet you and show you where to throw. He was the dump attendant, and this was his kingdom.
“See,” he'd say, lighting up a cigarette with trembling hands. “Sometimes there are bears down there.”
We strained to see the bottom of a trash-filled gully. Those were the good old days.
The new transfer stations seem antiseptic by comparison. They lack the romance of the old dumps. Still, they are a great place to lighten your load.
* * *
You never know who you are going to meet at the transfer station: friends, enemies, maybe a local celebrity.
You might even learn something about yourself that you never knew.
One day, I stood in front of the compactor, heaving bags of garbage into the beast. A shapely blonde woman stood a few yards away, watching me intently.
“You have a good throwing technique,” she said.
Really? I never knew.
That old saying is right. Travel does broaden the mind.