Can Harvesting

Can harvesting seems to be making a revival as I approached a man who looked like he was a season veteran of many decades. Already attaining quite a large bounty, this person, part animal trapper, part environmentalist was well on his way to a good days work. Three overstuffed trash bags full, we're talking industrial strength as he hopped into a local apartment complex dumpster feet first looking for bags of trash to cull through. He was pretty well known in this neighborhood to the point that many of the local residents set their recyclables out for him in a couple of well worn out plastic gardening maintence cans, those olive drab green ones. He had a sense of sifting through other people's wastes with an exclusive innate ability, almost like x-ray vision which enabled him go through a semi filled dumpster in a matter of less than 5 minutes. He told me this was necessary cause not every manager in every complex around Twain and Swenson completely agreed with his philosophic mantra to help mother earth via recycling

Therefore the conversation stayed brief, he did most of his talking during his excavation, discussing how he use to work in software development during the late 80's, but it did not appeal to him and after a scandal of someone within the company accused of espionage as well as the selling of sensitive proprietary software programs; this man was given a large severance package and a hasty termination. He grew a bitter about the course this ever expanding computer revolution was beginning to take, so he took his money and dropped out, content to live out life rolling joints, getting outdoors around on his old 10 speed, do they even make those anymore, this bike had the rust to prove its age but the gears and chain looked fine, especially after I took it for a ride while trying to balance the three bags with about 800 to 1000 crushed cans in them. I felt like the man on a unicycle riding the hi-wire with three other men balanced on my shoulder, before crashing the ride lasted about 250 yards. The man laughed luckily the bags did not sustain any damage or break, so offering the bike back to him, he rode off toward the next block in his route. There did not seem to be much competition for recyclables like back in the old days in Southern California, maybe he was a rebirth born out of the tough times facing most people today, signaling to me that this man may soon have more people out in those dumpsters seeking a way to save their fate.