Salvage Culture

(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.