This is more about a life “adventure” than just a story about picking up some CRT monitors to scrap. And in the end, it isn’t probably the monetary gain (if any) that makes the story worth noting but how one spends their time.
I had seen a CL ad in the freebie section on-again, off-again from a guy who had 30+ old CRT monitors to pick up. He listed a town about 75+ miles from here as the location. At the time, I didn’t bite because I didn’t want to over stay my welcome at the bro’s and SiL’s place storing CRTs behind their “barn” while I take them in a few at a time (I still have several options on getting rid of CRTs after scrapping them out for free but not a big dump at one time, more of a constant stream of “dripples” as I go about other business in town). Anyway, no hunting season was going on so I couldn’t justify it just as a straight run using the bro’s F-250, although with 30 monitors I probably still would have come out ahead. Anyway, didn’t bite at the time.
Saw the guy’s ad show up a few more times over the summer but now he was down to “about 8 or so”. The upcoming 3rd weekend of Sept. was youth waterfowl season where kids are the only ones allowed to hunt and I was sort of feeling sorry for this guy that he had listed this ad so much and had no final takers so I contacted him again (I had e-mailed him earlier when he had the 30 monitors). I asked if he would be around that Sat. and he said, “yeah, I’ll be doing tornado rebuilding.” Post-tornado work? I asked him where he was from the town of about 1,500 he lists as location in the CL ad. Another 16 miles away in a much smaller town, one that got hammered hard by a tornado in May. Well, that was more miles on the truck but how often do I get to see a town trying to rebuild after a disaster and besides I was feeling sorry for the guy trying to get rid of these monitors and I was going to take at least one boy duck hunting somewhere in se SD that Sat. so, ok, let’s roll.
My oldest didn’t want to go duck hunting or see a town rebuilding after a recent tornado so just the 15-year old and me headed out by 3 pm. Picked up the bro’s trusty old F-250 at their country place which is 30+ miles closer to this guy’s location, and headed down to tornado town. About half an hour out, I called “Adam” and asked him where he actually was going to be in town and asked if I could bring him anything to drink (pop, beer) because I felt a little odd swooping in on him, taking his stuff, and not giving him anything, although I couldn’t really pay him any real cash for the monitors. He said he take some Mellow-Yellow so T and I stopped at the market in the town of 1,500 that’s on the main state highway and picked up a case of pop ($9.50) and headed out the other 16 miles to our destination.
Tornado town is one of those small towns (in our state a farming town) that never reached critical mass for several reasons; wasn’t on a RR line, was located in the corner of its county, off of any bigger state highways, etc. If you’ve ever been exposed to geography’s “central place” theory, tornado town was down in about the 4th tier out of maybe the 5 tiers in my state in settlement hierarchy. It had been declining before the storm, having less than 250 people, but now with a third of the town wiped out, the population was down another 40% or so. Still, when we rolled down main street in the truck, there still appeared to be about a dozen “viable” businesses left and it looked fairly tidy and neat, not as hollowed out as I’ve seen in many similar sized towns across the country.
Adam was working on the outside of a house rebuild on the west side of town. I stopped and took some pixs while he finished up what he was doing so he could drive over to his storage area. I didn’t want to be too much of a disaster tourist and get in people’s faces so I didn’t get a good pix of the jumping fish cut out of what remained of a tree on front of a house that was being rebuilt.
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We drove about 2 blocks away where Adam has a stand-alone garage that has storage on one side and a stall to do some auto work on the other. He told me he has an auto body repair business in this little town but I got the feeling he could use more work. One reason he wanted the monitors gone was so he could organize his car parts better and sell some on ebay. He was more of an active scrapper when prices were better and picked up a lot of electronic stuff at auctions and such. He said he had lurked on SMF but never signed up as a member. He wondered if it was worth staying in a town with an unknown future with so many people leaving and several businesses thinking about closing up. Doesn’t help that this little town is 20 miles out of the way from about anywhere in the local area. I hope he doesn’t move from tornado town because places like that need people willing to work hard for the community. But I’d understand why he left if he did. His garage was about 100+ meters kiddy-corner from a big brick Lutheran church that the storm mostly destroyed. Yet his cottonwood tree survived mostly unscathed…
the lot where the church was located
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T and I loaded up 12 CRT monitors and Adam through in a box of 12 keyboards. We got going looking for a place for T to hunt ducks later than I wanted but figured we find a place after a bit. A good number of public game land around owned both by the feds and the state. Just had to find a slough that still had water in it. We saw wind turbines on the horizon and ended up driving right through them and hunting on a slough near them. One of my colleagues at work who grew up in a town about 30+ miles to the northeast, said she saw the blinking red aircraft warning lights at night last time she visited her in-laws farmstead from that distance. People don’t realize how big these things are until you’re right underneath them. I’ve heard that when one of the blades in straight up and down, from the tip to the ground is about 270 feet. We have a place in my bedroom burg on I-90 that started up several years back making the bases for these things. Always interesting to watch them roll onto the highway with their over-length trucks. There are a couple of axles way in the back that aren’t attached to the rest of the truck trailer but are anchored solely by the weight (and I suppose tie downs) of the piece being moved. We’re seeing more and more wind turbines springing up in South Dakota but Iowa is even more gung-ho. I believe they have recently taken over (or soon to) 1st place in electricity generated by wind from Cali.
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We were starting to run out of time to set up duck decoys but found a WPA (federal waterfowl production area) that still had water. T glassed the area and saw some ducks so we headed in with him leading loaded up in case he jumped some birds as we walked and the old man carrying the decoy bag. About 300+ meters in, we came to a little point of veg sticking out into he water that ended up having some blue-wing teal sitting on the other side. They started to flush and T knocked down 3 with 2 shots, his first double ever. So, he was half way to his limit but alas nothing ended up coming into the decoys over the next hour or so they were up. I’ve noticed during these “youth waterfowl” weekends before the regular duck season that a combo of things keeps the hunting from being top-notch; usually too nice of weather, no other hunting pressure, and too much open water for the ducks to be on. I’ve noticed that the classic duck slough of my younger days—a mosaic of patches of reeds and smaller open water areas (I guess a “hemi-marsh” phase is the used scientific term for this state of wetland) don’t seem to be around much anymore, at least in my area. Many of the sloughs, if they’re holding any water during the past few years, tend to be shallow open water lakes. Ducks like BWT don’t seem to mind but it makes things harder on duck hunters especially old semi-fat ones like me. Also very discouraging not to see any sign of muskrats on this slough or most sloughs in my area. As an old “rat” trapper, that was always fun to do the first weekend of Nov. and sometimes profitable. Don’t know what is causing these changes; land use changes, climate change, a combo, other, but things are different from what they were in my younger days.
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We got loaded up by full dark and then realized how far out we were from home, maybe a “Monitor Too Far” to paraphrase the title of an 1970s WWII movie about an Allied battle plan that didn’t work out. Bought some road food at the little 1,500 person town where we got on the main east-west state highway to go home but forgot how much fun eating a personal pan combo pizza is while driving in the dark! We stopped at the closest small town nearest to bro’s and SiL’s place and threw in a $20 of fuel into the truck. Got to the “farm” and had T cut the monitor cords with a shear while in the truck while I transported them through the weed patch to the back of the metal big shed (“barn”) on their place where I’ll keep them as I work through them one or two at time when I’m out there. Another half an hour drive home, arriving about 10:30.
In the end, I’ll probably not make any money on this deal (already have over $30 invested in the “logistics”) but it ended up being more than just about scrap but a chance to spend time with one of my kids and see part of my state that I hadn’t traveled to much before. And it helps me better understand how people use the land which is part of my day job. Scrapping can be much more than a job, it can be an adventure!
