One Mans Trash, Another Mans Treasure

I have this neighbor (neighbor is a loose term, he actually lives probably 4 blocks away) who’s yard is a total garbage heap. The man has multiple RVs, cars (ancient, broken down and smashed to pieces), trucks, tractors, ditch-diggers (not sure of the exact name, but those yellow things with the scooper on the front), trailers, signs, an electric keyboard and stand, all kinds of other random stuff, and a cannon. One of these days I’m going to go to his house and do an inventory of all the junk he has just sittin’ in his front yard. The vastness of his collection is nothing short of awesome.

My favorite of all his treasures is the cannon. My husband thinks it’s some random tool… a pressure something… I can’t remember what he thought it was. But I’m here to tell you, it’s a cannon plain as day. I think my husband just can’t face the fact that down here sometimes people keep cannons in their yard. It’s like Russian roulette on whether that thing actually works or not, but who’s gonna mess with the guy who has a cannon beside his garage? Definitely not this girl, which is why I haven’t gone to take a formal inventory of his yard for the purpose of this post.

We frequently notice that he moves things around, replaces new junk with old junk and old junk with new junk. It’s sort of like a constant game of I-Spy. Every time we drive by, I’m saying “Look at that guy’s new (insert treasure/piece of garbage)!” This week it was a tan colored electric keyboard and stand perfectly placed at the very front of his yard. I like to think he did this just for me. Surely by now he has noticed that I slow down to see what new beautiful pieces of junk he’s put out.

I’m not going to lie to you either; I seriously enjoy the quirkiness of it all. It’s just a guy who loves his garbage and wants to proudly display it for all to see. Junkyard man, I salute you. And thanks for giving me another reason to love this absolutely crazy little Southern town.

If I ever manage to gain enough courage to stop and take a picture, I’ll post it. But it’s not likely, because as much as he thrills me, I’m also secretly afraid he’s a serial killer. I watch too much Criminal Minds.