My father loved trash-pickin’. We’d do it all the time. Pick a nice neighborhood on their trash day and drive around, looking for whatever cool things might be going to the curb. We’d find all sorts of neat stuff – some of it just cool to look at for a minute, some of it in perfect condition, some of it fixable by us. We’d keep some, give some away, throw some back, even sell some.
It’s a very fond memory, and I’d told stories of it to my own children, who loved them. So tonight was a nice night… and off we went.
You’d have thought we were going to Disney Land. They were so excited, talking about opportunities and discussing the world. Why people replace things, what that might mean about those things, how one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. We got some food, made some jokes, sang some songs.
We also came back with a cool table that they kids spotted!
Activities like that – ones with no real failure state, just “let’s do this semi-specific thing until we decide not to, and talk about it along the way” are such perfect avenues of fellowship.
My father’s spirit with us. Treasure from trash.
The Opportunity Machine 