The Dump, part II

All this talk about the dump has reminded me of two personal stories of the East Hampton recycling center.

The first is rather humorous, at least it is now, looking back on it. When my husband and I were engaged to be married, we spent a lot of time in my yard, transforming it from what I called " a desert" into what my Mom called "a jungle." Mike, being a plant-lover and a landscaper, would often get 'freebies' from customers or his nursery connections. Sometimes he'd find discarded plants at the dump. One day, while accompanying him to the dump, we drove around to the landscape dumping section. We were on a hunt for some large stones for use in the flower gardens. We found a pile of rocks and began to load some choices into the back of his truck. We realized it was nearly closing time for the dump, and decided we'd better make our way around the mountains of dirt to the gate. As we came up over the hill on the road to the dump, we saw that a man was getting into his truck after locking the gate from the other side. We honked the horn to get his attention, but it was too late. Either he was deaf or too intent to get home for supper, but either way, we found ourselves locked in the dump!

Ok....there we were, sitting in the truck, laughing about our dilemna. There was no way out with the dump truck, although a small person might be able to slip between the fence post and the gate post, which is what we finally determined that I should do. Then I walked to the One Stop Market phone booth to call the police. I happened to know the dispatcher who answered, and I made her promise not to put the story in the local paper. She asked, "why? what happened?" As I told her, she laughed along with me and then said, "Look at the headlines on Thursday!" When she finally calmed down, she said she'd send someone with a key to get us out of our lock up!

When I got back to Mike, we were still laughing at our predicament, when along came Buzzy Brown in his pick up truck and his key to the gates. We told him how we came to be inside after hours, and said, 'the police work fast around here, sending you so quickly.' He told us that he wasn't sent, but was on his daily run for metal for the junk yard. We left, without ever seeing a policeman, and with the knowledge that if we ever stayed too late at the dump again, Buzzy would eventually show up to free us!

Stand by for another blog with my second personal story in the "Adventures at the Dump."