It was a dark and stormy Friday night. To hear local TV weatherguru Gus talk about it as the big blow blew through you’d have thought the city was experiencing the onset of the apocalypse. It was a wet and windy precursor to what dawned clear blue and cool with the arrival of morning, time for Vinegar Hill Neighborhood Association’s annual neighborhood home discards pickup. During all but one of the 10 events, coordinated with the city street department truck and endloader crews, I have been among the local neightor volunteers, and that’s okay because we’ve convenened at my humble abode on the wouth side of our association territory in the near-southwest part of town. This year volunteer turnout at the juice, coffee and donuts kickoff was fewer than usual, but it was appropriate for the reduced resident discards volume. The storm which turned our town upside down the previous evening may have been a factor. Who knows? The dawn was supreme and the day played in harmony.
I was up, uncharictaristcally at 6:30 to arrange tables for the kickoff gathering and to carry my household discards to the curbside between sidewalk and street. I had time left before people began arriving so I began trimming my front shrubs. As I write these words, the main shrub resembles a half a flat-top haircut. I’ll finish it tomorrow.
Arrivals, Ron Kuethe, Judy nextdoor, association president Bill Castor with refrehments in tow began at 7:30 on the dot. By 8:00 most who would help were deep into the donuts etc., girding themselves with easy energy for the big drive that sallied forth at 8:05. Four city trucks and the endloader were ready, their drivers cheerful and glad to be on the municipal payroll until noon. Early into the process, Springfield artist William Crook added his enthusiasm and elbow grease to ours. He’s a VHNA member; a solid-good hummin’ bean.
The procedure is routine by now. All residents belonging to VHNA had been notified in the monthly View From the Hill newsletter, non-members in a small flyer, about our May editions and a follow-up flyer had been distributed this past week. We explained what we could take — old toys, electronics, furniture, mattresses, clothes, books, magazines — and what we could not take — tires, yard and food waste, refrigerators, air condisioners, fourescent light bulbs, paints, cleansers, spouses, kids, residues of lofty ideals . . . so there would be few items encountered that we did not take.
The big challenge was arriving at the piles of discards at the same time as the wheeled vehicles since all of us VHNA folk were on foot, and our territory spans from about 10 blocks north-to-south and about as many east-to-west. The truck crews communicated with each other via radio, and we on foot walked as fast as we could catching up with them while a supervisor in a pickup truck scouted ahead to be sure we found all discards, loaded them into the clam-shelled front end loader and watched as it carried the goods to waiting dump trucks. When a truck was filled to the brim, he bee-lined to the landfill, sumped and returned to the project. It was all pretty smooth, thanks to good people with great attitudes and the truck crews. We were done by 11, so we thought. in our wake, some residents we had passed by and set things out for pickup. So we returned to those sites and wrapped it all up. I was home quaffing orange juice over ice at 11:30.
Membership in VHNA was not required for discards pickup, but wll our notices encouraged people to sign up ($10), and several did. Chatting with citizens as we did heavy lifting and hauling, the good will in action, by example, of our volunteers for fellow citizens . . . . . that was our real reward.
If your part of turf does not have a neighborhood association, you should consider it. Events including our pickup are possible only because we are an association with good people who care about our city and want to make it better. We have a collective voice that Springfield municipal management hears, resepcts and engages on occasions such as this, and we in turn are grateful to our city for their invaluable help.
Poet Vachel Lindsay wrote “Let every street be made a reverent aisle/ Where music grows and beauty is unchained.” He was absolutely right.
Live long . . . . . . . and proper.
