... so, in connection with making room in the basement just to move
things around and in conjunction with the one-time,
never-to-be-repeated, county-wide opportunity to dump obsolete, SNAFU
household electronics for free, I filled my Subaru wagon with
monitors, Macs, and assorted paraphernalia including three (3)
Laserjet II/III printers and drove to the Health and Human Services
Center parking lot. HHSC occupies the premises formerly used by the
Sheboygan Clinic. The parking space is immense. In Sheboygan only
downtown buildings facing 8th Street have been preserved. Edifices
fronting on the other streets have been dynamited through the years,
leaving vast, paved, open spaces behind the facades still standing.
I arrived at 8:30a and didn't expect to have to start unloading until
9:00a. I wanted to be early because the tonnage to be accepted was
limited by what would fit in one semi trailer, and I didn't want to
have to take my stuff back home again. I am normally paranoid about
such things. I am accepting of this personality weakness, and I
myself try to accommodate it within myself. However, I found there
were at least a dozen vehicles ahead of me. Apparently the county
harbors other collectors beside me. While I waited for 9:00a, I
played PBS News on the radio, sipped instant coffee, and mused about
how big the parking lots are behind Potemkin Villages.
Obvious HHSC patrons came and went on foot. Finally they were joined
by obvious volunteers wandering in from all directions clapping
cell-phones to their heads in obvious clueless, disorganized,
disarray. The vehicular crowd had grown. The parking lot was mostly
full, and all semblance of a queue for dibs at unloading first had
been lost. Obviously the semi trailer remained locked, and no hide
nor hair of any aliens destined to do the heavy lifting was in
evidence. A door slammed. An elderly, white couple with better
things to do approached with an offering of a portable TV and a VCR.
Suddenly, like bodysnatchers bearing pods, everybody was out of their
cars, carrying whatever they could hold in the general direction of the
corner of the lot where the trailer was parked. This went on for some
time as they returned to their vehicles empty handed and vanished. At
last it was time for us collectors to move forward two at a time to
positions within pitching distance of the growing high-tech pile.
Fathom the ignominy of exposing the most prized items of ones hoard of
passe data-processing gear to the curious gazes of the patrons of
HHSC. I was hell-bent to finish as quickly as possible to avoid any
possibility of contagion. I didn't look. I didn't want to see the
mounds of stuff better than mine that I would rather have had once
upon a time.
--
.. Be Seeing You,
.. Chuck Rhode, Sheboygan, WI, USA
.. Weather: http://LacusVeris.com/WX
.. 61° — Wind WNW 5 mph
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