Elmer and Mavis go dumpster diving: Why we're proud to be in the Sprick family

We're privileged to present this news flash/wise essay from Uncle Elmer "Joe" Sprick about the ruckus he and Aunt Mavis, our very own quiet octogenarians-gone-activist, inadvertently sparked this past week in our very own river city, Lake City, Minn. We're proud of them, and hope the town's public library can come up with a saner way to dispose of books it doesn't want. Throwing away books strikes us, too, as an outrage. That's Aunt Mavis above with some of the precious loot, which otherwise would be in a landfill by now.

DUMPSTER DIVING

By ELMER "JOE" SPRICK

Lake City, Minn. It may never be a spectator sport. It's best done in the cold winter months, for obvious reasons. We engaged in it a few times when our new home was being built. After hours, we would raid the contracters' dumpster for pieces of plywood and 2-by-4’s that came in handy for workroom shelving and such.

But recently we hit the big time! The city fathers hired a new librarian. Although we were not privileged to see her job description, her earliest mission seemed to be to get rid of books in an overstocked library. A new broom sweeps clean -- with one exception. The librarian’s dog, Booker, doesn’t take up much space and was granted permission to stay in spite of the objections from a book-loving lady who suffers from severe allergies.

An alert concerned citizen reported to us that a new dumpster behind the library was being filled with discarded books -- hundreds of books that would eventually be incinerated or end up in a landfill.

We reasoned that a cold Sunday morning after church would be a good time to raid the dumpster without attracting a lot of attention. Wrong!

No sooner had we begun gleefully rescuing children’s videos and such classic children’s books as "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Cinderella" when the librarian appeared and asked, “What are you looking for?”

Our answer was simple but not completely honest: “We are looking for books for our grandchildren.” Actually we were looking for books and videos for our great-grandchildren. The librarian disappeared, and we continued our pillaging, making off with shopping bags loaded with goodies.

Our next raid was planned for a few days later. I even sacrificed a half day of fishing for a shot at a dumpster laden fresh with books discarded that morning.

But we had not counted on another dumpster diver with a pickup truck who creamed off much of the good stuff. And there was a new chain and padlock over the top of the dumpster. The chain was heavy enough to serve as an anchor chain for the Titanic, albeit a bit too short. The padlock on the end was not locked.

No sooner had we moved the chain aside and starting digging when a middle-aged lady bearing a mean look came out of the library's back door and commenced giving us the what-for. We had her outnumbered four to one, and she made a hasty retreat as a police car pulled up.

We were fearful that we might get honorable mention in the weekly police report. Quite the contrary. We were informed that anything thrown away in a public dumpster is in effect up for grabs.

Just when we thought we had won the battle, a member of the Lake City City Council appeared through the back door of the library. We all know this learned man of many letters -- MS, BA, AA, CFPIM, ICC, FMC. He gave verbose answers to our simple, basic question, which was, “Shouldn’t the public be given an opportunity to salvage some of these books rather than see them wasted?”

His answer: “We can’t have 8,000 people going through our dumpster.” His estimate may have been a bit strong. The city population is only about 5,000 -- and quite a few of them can’t read.

He did have one valid point -- “The city might be faced with a liability problem if someone were injured taking books.” To date, no one has been injured fighting over books, nor has anyone fallen in the dumpster, but I suppose it could happen.

This evening, Mavis boxed up the books for our great-grandchildren. I spied an old favorite of granddaughter C.'s -- "Ootah, The Eskimo." I can still picture her as a 3-year-old sitting on my lap and saying, “Read it again, Grandpa.”

And I might just do that.

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Your scrapblog editor notes that Joe and Mavis' granddaughter is a recent graduate of California's Stanford University who is now at Northwestern University in Illinois. That's exactly the kind of thing that can happen when children are given too many books!