Next week is Spring Cleanup Week in Grand Forks. Spring Cleanup Week is an annual May event where the community can put anything and everything from hazardous waste to broken dishwashers on the berm and the city will pick it up for free. My guess is that Spring Cleanup Week was created many years ago after someone tried to shove a bedroom dresser stuffed with old paint cans and lawn clippings into their roll-out black garbage bin and then cover it with a few tied-up Target bags filled with normal trash and the sanitation worker took one look at it and thought, “Frickin’ A.” Hence, Spring Cleanup Week was born.
Spring Cleanup Week should really be renamed the Great Grand Forks Swap Meet because that’s what it’s become: the annual opportunity for everyone to clear out the old-to-them stuff in their garages and basements and sheds and living rooms and wherever else and then drive around and pick up new-to-them stuff to fill those spaces back in. I think the official rule is to put your stuff out on the berm the day before your neighborhood’s designated pick-up date, but the unofficial practice is to unload your crap every day starting about two weeks prior. I was in Fargo this weekend for hockey, and when I returned I had to wait to turn into my cul-de-sac because there were so many people slow-rolling down my street “shopping” the berms.
“Oh, ha ha, Amanda, why would people want someone else’s trash?” You may be thinking. First, it’s not all trash. If you’re in the market for a trampoline, for example, your chances of finding one during Spring Cleanup Week are like 99% because who on earth wants to haul a trampoline to Goodwill. Same with furniture; two years ago, I saw my neighbor set out three Windsor chairs and called Kyle and told him to go get two of them (I LOVE Windsor chairs) and by the time he put on shoes and drove three blocks they were already gone and those chairs have bothered me ever since. Dang.
Second of all, the saying “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” fully applies to straight-up trash. Last year, Kyle set out two burned out fluorescent lights (which he had marked with “BURNED OUT” in big lettering) and two cracked toilet seats and they got picked up before a perfectly good bench seat. Those bulbs and toilet seats have also bothered me ever since because I really wish I knew what they planned on doing with them. What if it was something awesome? Dang.
Anyways, there are also the normal expected problems that come with Spring Cleanup Week – don’t leave your bike on your lawn, for example – but overall, everyone wins. The people win because they get rid of the old and gain from the new. And the City wins because by the time everyone finishes digging through the berms there’s a lot less to pick up.
With that said, Spring Cleanup Week drives me c-razy because I am married to a wonderful, handsome, intelligent man who absolutely loves free garbage. Here is some of the free garbage he’s picked up during Spring Cleanup Week that I know about: a broken rocking bench, which he fixed up and painted and turned into a much-loved feature of our country house until a tornado took it away; several broken barbecue grills, which he fixed up and sold at a garage sale before the kids were born; and a broken hockey net, which he fixed up and the kids use constantly.
Why does that garbage drive me crazy if it is useful and/or much-loved? Well, because it’s only useful and/or much-loved once he fixes it up, and until then it sits in my visible line of sight half-assembled. Also, for every Windsor chair and Garbage Bench (our affectionate name for the rocker) he brings home, there’s an electronic basketball hoop that fills the garage and gets turned on maybe three times before it goes back on the curb the following year.
“What are some of the things you’ve gotten during Spring Cleanup Week besides the grills and Garbage Bench?” I just texted him because he’s somewhere in the house and I don’t feel like looking for him.
“A skateboard, a couple of footballs, two lacrosse sticks, and so many other good things,” he texted me back. “A shovel! A gas siphon. Rollerblades. A goalie helmet. And the chassis for my new gun cart.”
Here’s the story of the “chassis for the gun cart:”
As previously noted, I was in Fargo on Saturday for a hockey tryout. There was a gap in between sessions and so a few of us parents took a few of the boys to a golf facility to waste some time.
“Hey,” one of the dads said to me after we received our drinks. “I told Kyle I saw a bicycle baby buggy on the berm on my way to Fargo today.”
“NO,” I said. “He does not need that.”
“We DO need it, Amanda,” the other dad told me. “We need it for clay shooting.”
“No, you DON’T,” I said. “And I don’t need to store that thing in my garage for a year before you guys realize you don’t need it.”
Kyle and some of his friends are in a clay shooting league. Clay shooting is shooting clay pigeons (little orange disks) that are flung out of launcher-thingies at various stations along a course. The shooters get from station to station by walking – and, apparently, walking while holding a gun is somehow too much work, and so a few of the shooters pull along these cart-thingies (imagine a broom rack attached to a dolly) with their shotguns on it. These cart-thingies are available at the start of the course where they check in, but Kyle and his friends don’t want to use THOSE cart-thingies, they want their own…and they don’t want to BUY their own, they want to BUILD it out of a baby stroller.
“Yep, he got it!” The first dad said, showing me the confirmation text.
“You jerks,” I said.
They laughed.
When I got home later that night, there was a baby buggy sitting on our curb.
“What’s that all about?” I asked Kyle after I settled in.
“It’s too low,” he said, mournfully. “It’ll take too much work to raise it up to the proper height.”
“Just as well,” I said.
“We NEED it, Amanda,” he said. “But we need it to be an actual baby stroller.”
Two days later, I was driving to work when I watched someone wheel a dusty stroller out to the berm. I sighed, and called Kyle.
Fifteen minutes later, he texted me.
“Got it!” He said. “And I put out that folding chair you wanted gone in exchange.”
Win-win.
The photo above is of Kyle and his new baby stroller.
This week on North Dakota Today, we talked about Bill Vasicek, my Nice Person of the Week, as well as the Grand Forks City Band (PS, they have a free concert TONIGHT, May 4, and will be playing music from Star Wars and other movies). (Valley News Live)
One of the students at Emerado School had a pretty special visitor last week. (Facebook)
The students at Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton High School came together to make sure Graci Jegtvig had an amazing time at prom. (Valley News Live)
Joel Balko is a BIG fan of Star Wars. (Valley News Live)
I talked about the Buddy Classic on TV, and here it is in action! (Grand Forks Herald)
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