This piece was written as part of a 300 words a day writing challenge in a recent class I took, Writing About Place.

Clean up Week

Every year in the early spring, the community I grew up in hosted “Cleanup Week”. During this time, the township scheduled overtime for the garbage men and they picked up anything put out for the trash man. Washers, fridges, tires, paint, nothing seemed to be out of the realm during that week. It was even rumored that a neighbor got rid of an old jalopy during spring cleaning.

The officials of the Township reasoned that this was the most effective way to rid the community of blight. If it indeed did make a difference, it was hard to tell. My blue collar street still seemed to have its share of hoarder collections. My own Father had a pile of scrap metal, a pile of wood and a collection of doors, reserved just in case he might need it one day. Nevertheless, piles of scrap metal, mountains of boxes, rolls of carpets materialized on the curbs in our neighborhood. Where did all of this refuge redside till then? 

Father retired when I was seven and to fill his time one of his hobbies was to make extra money assembling and repairing bicycles. This scheme was successful only because of cleanup week. Every morning during this week, we rose before the sun and traveled to whichever streets had scheduled garbage pickup that day. Always pushing the speed limit to stay ahead of the garbage truck. The day ended with a trip though the areas that were set for trash pickup the next day in case someone put their trash out early. By dinner time, most often the bed of the truck would be filled with bikes, wheels, tires and the odd interesting item he thought he might find a use for.

Once as we slowly crawled through a neighboring subdivision, Father eyed a treasure chest of parts. He turned onto the street and stopped at the curb holding a massive amount of wheels and tires.

“Jump out and get them,” he instructed.

Nervously I replied, “No way. I go to school with the kids that live here!”

“Son, get the bike parts,” he ordered.

I got the bike parts.

Later that day we passed near our community church and there across from the parsonage were three bicycles. All appeared to be fully assembled. We drove by without stopping.

“Hey,” I exclaimed, those were good bikes!”

Father snorted out his reply, “I don’t want Pastor to see us picking up junk!”

By weeks end our small backyard was full of the discards we had claimed. Father would spend the rest of the summer building bikes from the castoffs. Spray painting frames, patching tubes, making them all road worthy. Upon completion, each bike found itself sitting in the front yard with a for sale sign stuck in the ground next to it. I never knew if Father made any money on his obsession, but it gave him something to occupy his time and to embarrass the crap outta me.

Roy Richard
June 2024