Passage V

Here Comes the Garbage Truck!

In 1917, the year our house was built. The city planners had an orderly scheme about the collection of trash. Garbage cans would be picked up from the narrow alleys that ran behind the rows of houses. The standard-width sidewalks with which the houses faced would remain free of trash receptacles.

For six or seven decades, this is the way things would have worked. Garbage trucks squeezed through the back alleys, collecting trash. However, the construction of new vehicles in recent years put an end to the city designers' plans. Today's garbage trucks are enormous, far wider than the slender alleys. Unlike the older trucks, they are painted bright yellow.

Garbage cans must now be placed on the front sidewalk and collected from the main street. What was once hidden away behind the houses are now out in the open, for all to see.How disappointed those early town leaders would be to see this public display of trash.

[1] Yet, the new system has an unexpected benefit. [2] It has made the mechanical gymnastics of the garbage truck much more visible to our neighborhood's young children, who delight in watching the show. [3] A fire engine is bright red and loud, but it doesn't pass by often. [4] For them, the garbage truck is even better than a fire engine. [5] The garbage truck, on the other hand, is a weekly visitor and exotic in its own way. [6] Its best features are hard to beat the bright yellow paint, the sound of the warning horn as it backs up, and, most amazing of all, the way its mechanical arm lifts and dumps the trash cans into its open back end.(75)

Sometimes the neighbors and I complain to each other about the garbage truck.It is loud, we agree, and it blocks the street.But then whatever qualms I might have are quickly erased by the children's excitement.If those long-ago city planners could see the curiosity and amazement on the children's faces,I'm sure they would feel the same way.