Reflections during the storm

I've made my money. I've done my time. For the first weekday since Black Friday I haven't worked.

I'm not stressed about being able to pay for college. I'm not stressed about the 12 inches of snow that are accumulating on my static car. I'm not stressed that Forbes recently rated Cleveland the "seventh most stressful city" with the "fourth fewest sunny days."

There's no sun, but it's a great day. It's a day dedicated to reflection and productivity.

One such reflection is how easy it is to get caught up in the daily grind. Most days this past month I did nothing after work except kick my feet up and veg with my mouth slightly open sometimes slightly drooling while my brain deteriorated inside my skull.

It's hard to pull yourself from that kind of rut. My lifeline was installing Adobe Creative Suite 4 (my Christmas gift to myself). It dissolved, in one evening, the blockage of creativity that mindless labor built in these last 30 days.

The single-most frustration with having a job where it's go-go-go is that your mind may be in overdrive because there's little thought that needs to go into the work, but there's no outlet for that creativity until you get home and by that time it's too late and you always seem to just be too tired. I always carried a notebook and pen with me, but rarely wrote in it. Instead, I kept a mental list. Such items on my continual mental list were:

1. Work on my resume Web site
2. Draw out a blueprint to build coffee table out of logs and/or scrap lumber
3. Draw out a sketch for building my desk
4. Write in the blog
5. Read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
6. Choose photos to print and frame for my new apartment
7. Go visit Chris, my brother
8. Go visit one of a dozen friends I haven't seen because I didn't feel like it

I sit here and realize most of all that many people will never escape this rut. My one cousin works two full-time jobs - one for support, one to pay off college loans. It seems everyone I know around here is either laid off, umemployed or working to pay off never-ending debt.

Is it a sign of the times or a sign of a culture?

Vilifying UPS through icy stories

Everyday my ice-laden uniform and wet boots go in front of this heat duct with hope that they will dry enough to wear the next day.

I’m a UPS driver helper. I work nearly 40 hours per week jumping in and out of a loud, brown van carrying packages in the rain, snow and sleet.

I work with a UPS veteran whose allegorical tales of driving should one day be compiled into a memoir. If ever published, the cover would cite the New York Times Book Review saying, “Profoundly uninteresting … The Boys in Brown is an emotional rollercoaster through the mind of any person who hates their job in 21st century suburbia. A solid reason why there are metal detectors installed at UPS buildings.”

I don’t think we make eye contact but once or twice per day. He drives and talks. I deliver and listen.

Since the last post more than 30 days ago, I’ve managed to accrue enough money to graduate from college debt free, which was my goal. Earning that money, however, was not without cost.

The main cost was nearly my sanity and I’m pretty certain almost my life a couple times (e.g. – one dog bite, one van spin-out, and two near misses by speeding cars).

Monotony
function: noun
pronunciation: \mə-ˈnä-tə-nē, -ˈnät-nē\

Knowing that everyday will cause you the same amount of nearly unendurable physical pain and mental suffering as the day before, but knowing you must still get out of bed in the morning five days per week.

My breaking point:
Being soaked from head to toe at hour eight of a ten-hour day carrying a 40-pound package up a quarter-mile, uphill driveway in an ice storm. Finally making it back to the truck, we notice the house to which the package was supposed to be delivered.

My sanity point:
Knowing that it’s only a few weeks and knowing that it's self-inflicted.

His breaking point:
Working with the same people out of the same building since he was 18 years old. He earned his MBA through evening classes. His recent-undergrad-alumni superiors treat him like a child and hold the carrot of promotion just out of his reach to quell any outbursts of undesirable behavior.

His sanity point:
He’ll be eligible for retirement in a few years. Two months of vacation time each year.

What good are complaints and oh-woe-is-me tales without a lesson? Lessons learned at the next post...

Application #20-something

This booming suburban market isn't booming for this guy. Perhaps it's bad timing. Perhaps it's a testament to the flailing economy. Perhaps I'll get a half dozen callbacks on Monday after Thanksgiving.

Regardless, there are two truths I've learned thus far:

1) Many establishments are "always accepting applications." You can sit down at a booth in just about any restaurant for 15 minutes to fill out an application to find that they aren't really hiring. "We'll keep your application active for x-number of days. Don't call us, we'll call you."

2) Online applications are the bane of my job hunt. Those employment kiosks are an easy way to kill 40 minutes with little hope for a callback. After filling out dozens of questions such as, "Employees seeing a manager steal can justify stealing." Answers: strongly agree, agree, do not know, disagree, strongly disagree. I apparently passed only one of these tests because instead of the standard wait-for-a-phone-call page came different instructions. It was as though I found the combination to a lock in all those silly questions. I should have written the answers down for future jobs. Or perhaps everything will be fine on Monday.

Idea: Life of the Working Poor

I'm home for the holidays out of necessity. I'm one of the thousands of students who participated in the mass exodus back to their hometowns.

Empty streets means empty stores. It's a reminder that without students this town probably wouldn't, to this capacity, exist. The shops, or perhaps their hours, are the cardiograph for the pulse of Athens. The shops close for winter - flat line.

I'm home for the holidays because when Athens is deadlining suburbia is pulsating with commerce as consumers dump their wallets in the respective tills. I have to make money. It's not an option. If I don't, then I'll have to figure out another way to pay tuition.

I've talked with several people about how I'll be spending my break to find encouraged me to see it as an anthropological experiment. I usually just gave a conceding nod. However, the more I thought the more I realized that I'll be living the life of the working poor.

I'll be working 70+ hours per week to feed a cycle of high-end bills (tuition) that will be broken when I graduate and hopefully find a job to pay only run-of-the-mill bills (rent, insurance, etc.).

They are working these minimum wage jobs to support a family, pay debts, and scratch out a life. They will be working this way for the rest of their lives. I'll have to endure only a month.

I'm trying to move into this workforce with an open mind and watchful eye to document the experience.

The Ceiling Loading Port

Though I could have waited until tomorrow or the next to post. I thought it was interesting in light of the previous correction to note that Tom, after years of talking about it, finally got out his chisel and tin snips and modified the Chevy. He and Charlotte are looking to take home an even bigger payload. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the ceiling loading port.

photos by Michael Hess

They didn't say exactly how much more the car could hold, but if you take a look at the pictures below you'll see the previous dump point as the rear windows. Tom and Charlotte get another eight inches of space in which to pour cans. When it gets near the top, Tom pushes the cans down further with whatever he can find to make yet more room. Larger hauls equals more money, which will help them through the long, nearly can-less winter break.

Revisions and Corrections — by Tom

I’ve been busy.

It’s the only excuse I could come up with to explain why I haven’t visited Tom and Charlotte in the past couple weeks. I didn’t forget. How could I possibly? I manage at least three sightings per week. High Street. Congress. Court. Mill. Palmer. Sometimes I get a wave and sometimes I can’t even see them because their backseat is jammed with cans to the ceiling.

I just returned from their apartment. I rarely leave there in under two hours it seems. No complaints. I enjoy their company and I think they reciprocate the sentiment. When I walked through their door earlier this evening Tom handed me an annotated version of the original Post story before I even hit my usual spot on the couch. I swallowed hard and instantly started apologizing and making excuses. If ever there was a story I didn't want to mess up it was theirs. The following are his commentary and revisions. He keeps this annotated version with him while "scrounging" (a new verb introduced this evening) to show and explain to students if ever he's identified and asked about the article. Thus far, no one has.


1) Tom Cullums and Charlotte Buck love parties, but not for the socialization or alcohol. They’re there for the empties.

"We love socialization — and alcohol."

2) “That wouldn’t be fair to monopolize on the collectin’ when other people are in the same situation as us — struggling to survive,” he said.

"Well how could we monopolize? There are just too many cans."

3) Cullums was a handyman and car mechanic for most of his life, but with a bad heart and a troublesome back, he said it’s been difficult to hold a labor-intensive job.

"... and diabetes and a hernia."

4) The couple collects in the late morning to early afternoon hours on weekends, reducing interaction with college students. “Rarely do we run into an asshole,” he said.

Despite the dog bites, broken glass, rusted metal, occasional slurred insults and weather, they scrape together a living from collecting cans and metal in their beat-up Chevy.

He reiterated the fact that they've only run into a few assholes in their near-two-decade can collecting career in Athens. That's a pretty good record, he said.

Also,
Correction: The interior, with the exception of the two front seats, is reduced to pure metal and the doors are hollow to increase their take, limited to about 150 pounds.

I don't know whether Tom mentioned it on purpose or simply in passing, but the car can actually hold about 250 pounds when the cans are crushed.

(Photo by Ryan Hodgson-Riggsbee for the 2001 VisCom Dusk-til-Dawn project)

I've gone through this entire thing about Tom and Charlotte without ever Googling them. For any other topic, I'd undoubtedly run directly to the search tool and see what it drudged from the depths of the Internet.
My mind didn't even go there for this topic. Tom and Charlotte don't have a telephone and, quite honestly, they seem a bit intimidated by the Internet. (I told them last week that they should start posting advertisements on craigslist.org for scrap metal or cans. Tom went into one of his soliloquys about how he wouldn't be allowed to go onto the Internet because of a misunderstanding with the Vietnam-era draft.)
Regardless, I never thought to look and much to my surprise found that I'm not alone in the desire to delve into the world of can collectors (besides my apparent nemesis in the same class, though different time).

Tom and Charlotte were featured in National Geographic back in 2001. Alright, featured may not be the word. Rather a photograph highlighting them appeared in the magazine in the long-standing zip code section.

Young Guns

Photo by Lisa Bernheim

Lisa was kind enough to let me use the photos she took for The Post article.
They are of Charlotte Buck and Tom Cullums on a Saturday earlier this quarter. Lisa made comment that she wishes that she could have spent more time with them. I second that.
I've spent a few solid nights talking with the couple about everything from Athens circa 1960 to the best hunting spots in West Virginia. I enter their home and receive nothing less than incredible hospitality, even when Tom isn't feeling so well, which has been the case more often lately.
In years past, Tom and Charlotte have split the tasks of driving and collecting. Recently, Tom is the unofficial driver and Charlotte runs the cans from bin to backseat or ground to window.
It's a concern for them. Can collecting means remaining healthy
enough to take Athens street by street in search of scrap metal. Can collecting also means having a running vehicle. Both machines are failing according to Tom.
He provided me one of the most honest, yet depressing quotes on my first visit to their home. In paraphrased form: I've got heart trouble, diabetes, and a bad back. The car's not going to last much longer without some major work. I don't know what we're going to do.
For such a normally upbeat couple the mood that settled over the room was thick with uncertainty and discomfort. Tom quickly changed the subject and rambled off into something about the peyote scene from Young Guns, which played on the big television on the floor (opposed to the smaller static-filled television on the dresser beside it).
It's a tough situation for them. Though, it won't be the first time that life has thrown them a curve ball. Tom said it's been a lot worse for them. Charlotte just nodded staring off undoubtedly into a memory from those times.

Trials and tribulations

As mentioned before, the story I wrote for The Post was cut in half. As requested by a few commenters, the next few posts will be anecdotes and pieces that were deleted.

Tom can talk for hours with Charlotte by his side nodding, smiling warmly and sometimes getting a word in edgewise about their respective half centuries in southeast Ohio. They were never married, but have lived together for 25 years. Tom often speaks in the dichotomous terms of “us” and “them.”
“We’ve had our trials and tribulations with the outside world,” he said. Though, there is no animosity in his comments. He speaks in a matter-of-fact way that casts no blame on any particular person or party. It’s a tone that says, “That’s just the way things are.” He is soft-spoken and strangely eloquent through his drawl. He sometimes closes his eyes when he speaks as if to concentrate.

There are more out there

Can collectors kicked off campus
Families supported by collecting recyclables discouraged
by Oscar Gutierrez
for The Channels Online

Rummaging elbow-deep through fly infested, rotting garbage everyday isn't something most people would consider as a way to make a living.
But for a handful of people, the recyclables that lie buried deep within the trash bins on our campus serve as a poor man's pot of gold at the end of a dimly lit rainbow.
While the college has no policies on the can collectors, security recently asked them not to collect on City College campus anymore. Security did this at the request of the facilities department...

Why am I not doing this?

Well, you can (no pun intended). How many times have you woken up after hosting a sizeable gathering to find cans not only in the main party areas, but under and behind the couches, on top of the fridge, and the inevitable collection on the back of the toilet? It isn't hard to dump the remaining contents and throw them in a bag.
It seems like a pretty cut and dry deal – drink canned beverages, collect the cans, and eventually take them to the scrap yard. However, there are certain issues that make the business venture less than desireable for many college students.

Issue 1: Logistics
Let’s say you throw one good-size party every weekend. One good-size party may generate 15 to 20 pounds of cans (depending on variables such as what people are drinking and the vessels from which they drink).
Outstanding, now let’s do the math. Depending on the market, scrap yards buy cans at prices ranging from 30 to 60 cents per pound. Best-case scenario you’ll cash in $12 worth of cans per party. The nearest salvage yard is about 10 miles outside of Athens. Provided you have a car that gets 30 miles per gallon and fuel remains at $2.25 per gallon, you’ll be spending almost 15 percent of your earnings on getting to and from the salvage yard.

Total profit: approx. $10

From this point, your options may be:

1) Invite more people.
2) Store the cans and cash in once per quarter or month.

Both have inherent issues and that brings me to the next issue.

Issue 2: Storage = smell
Beer gets skunky and starts to stink. Unless you have a garage or outdoor storage shed, it’ll be difficult to store your loot. Even if you do have something outside, then good luck shoving 60 pounds of dripping, stinking bags of cans into your backseat and trunk. You could technically wash them all out and crush them, but, honestly, who has that much time?

Issue 3: Adding to the competition
Many of the people who are doing this have little else going on for them. Anyone who has tried to find a job in Athens knows that it’s a tough market. Add physical ailments or a criminal record to that equation and your changes decline even further.
You, as college students, technically live under the poverty level. In fact, you are even eligible for food stamps; however, these people don’t have the level of support that we receive - be it from the government, school, or parents.

Green? Or to make the green?

I wrote a story for The Post recently that I'd been thinking about for quite some time - Recycling for Profit. I thought it to be a fairly straight forward profile about an older couple, Tom Cullums and Charlotte Buck, whose primary source of income besides government assistance is collecting cans from students and, more accurately, their parties.
The completed story was approximately 1,300 words long. The story that ran in The Post was 500 words shorter.

The items cut included details about their live that were deemed irrelevant to the story, anecdotes about their cumulative 40-plus years of scrap hauling and their "trials and tribulations with the outside world".

There are several items on my to-do list:

- I want to tell the story about these two Athens icons unknown by name, but known by title and service.
- I want to seek out and speak with their competitors in the can collecting realm.
- I want to hear and report about stories of the salvage owners and their interaction with the police who stop often looking for stolen catalytic converters, construction material and copper piping.

- Finally, in a related matter, I want to find who stole two grills from my porch. Whoever it was, they can keep them, but I want to know why and how much money they received from the scrap.