More So Royalton

After my last post I got a phone call from Susie, Nancy's sister. She was saying how she really enjoyed my post about Dumps, and that she had forgot about the Chicken Plant, which I guess deserves a place on my ramblings. So here goes.

I think the real name was the Forest Poultry, but locally known as the Chicken Plant or by some the Gut Factory. What it was, was a slaughter house for chickens. They haul chickens in by the semi load, and "dress" them in an Assembly line. As I remember they would hang them on hooks, cut their throats, them send them through like a stove type thing that removed the feathers and them they were packed in wooden crates with ice and transported to NYC, almost daily I think. The reason it was famous with the high school kids was the stink, between the plant and the river were two or three holding ponds were the drainage from the plant went, and believe me it could get very ripe...Sometimes after school some of us kids would go down there and catch chickens that got away during the unloading or just got away, we had these long wire type thing with a hook on the end and you could catch them by the leg. We would get ten cents a bird, good pay for those days.

Next time I think I will try and tell about the business that was across the street from the chicken plant...Greeen Mt Egg Service and PETCO (not the pet store) So be watching.

DUMPS PART 2

I said that I would finish my dump stories, so here it goes. Today we don't have dumps and for good reason, they were very dangerous to the health and welfare of everyone. We now have "transfer stations", SR and Tunbridge have TS, which are really mini dumps where you take the garbage and its loaded into trucks and taken away to Landfills which are nice dumps.

Ok, the Tunbridge dump, well it was located in South Tunbridge, up Russell Rd, on land formerly owned by Rich Howe. No sports field nearby but the 1st branch of the White River was close enough to get plenty of run off from the dump. Now that I think about it, the SR dump was closed in the mid 60's as when I worked at Petco(another story for another time) I would go to the dump on Saturday morning and I went to Tunbridge. At Petco we had an old Dodge pickup that I used to drive to the dump. Each week I would take all the trash from the garage, which included old oil, parts, cans, oily rags, anything. So what I am saying is that everything went in the dump, not just garbage which made for quite an interesting mix, I wonder how that all mixed. What a mess. When I said something to Stew about the dump post, he told me about his experiences at the Tunbridge dump. He said he and others would go to the dump on rainy days put a poncho over them and spend the day shooting rats. Don't think shooting rats helped anything other than his shooting skills which have always been well above average. Such fun we had in our youth, again it is a wonder we made to adulthood in one piece. Earlier I told you I went to the dump on Saturday in the old Dodge pickup, I have to tell you I really enjoyed that trip and made a game of it. The old Dodge of course had a standard transmission, three on the tree. The game was to see if I could go from SR to T without using the clutch, not a hard thing to do except for the intersection of 110 and 14. If I had to stop at the stop sign it would not work, but in those days the traffic was almost nothing and many time I could make it without ever using the clutch, not a big deal, but when I thought about it today, it really made me laugh thinking about to goofy things we did as kids.. Good night

DUMPS

Earlier this week, at my coffee group we got to talking about the PC times we live in and how we all grew up and did things that today a government agency would put our parents in jail for child abuse . Silly things like riding a bike without a protective helmet, which reminds me of what I used to do with my bike, I guess it has to start with the Tunbridge Fair. Back in the day, one of the biggest events at the fair was the "hell drivers", yes the Joey Chittwood show(I wonder if they are the Chittwood in Daytona) for those of you who never had the pleasure of seeing the "hell drivers", it was a show where cars jumped from one ramp to another, where cars went racing by on two wheels and the guy on the motorcycle who would drive through a wall of fire, that's the back ground. After the fair everyone would want to be a hell driver, but of course we were way to young, so we were hell drivers on bikes. Example, we would build a ramp and ride our bikes over it and "fly" through the air. One year we built a big ramp and of course put in the road at the bottom of the ox bow, so we could more speed. Somehow I,we talked 6 or 7 kids in the hood to lie on the road and let me "fly" over them. Believe it or not but I was successful and cleared them all, not sure just how many but at least six. Of course the only protection any of us had was jeans, t shirt and sneakers. And guess what, we all made without a scratch. Now what does this have to do with Dumps, nothing, but it got me thinking and wondered how many of the people who read my bloog even knew that SR and Tunbridge had dumps.
Dumps are a thing of the past and should be, many people had their own dumps, out back in the woods or down by the river, or where ever. Find an old cellar hole back in the hills and somewhere nearby there will be a dump. It's a Saturday ritual to go to the dump, why Ken Squire, the famous NASCAR announcer has the Saturday morning radio show"Music to go to the Dump by", still on WDEV to this day, ever in Vermont on a Saturday morning, listen to a good show. Getting back to the South Royalton Dump. It was located beside the river and beside the athletic field at the high school, I don't know when it was shut down, but sometime after I left town. To get a clearer picture of where the dump was, stand at home plate, at look to left field, that was the dump. In those days the outfield was also our soccer field, I have had to into the dump to retrieve a soccer ball, and by the way, they also burned the dump on an irregular basis, so you might be playing a game and the smoke would be so thick you couldn't see the ball (for real) and stink, don't know why we all were not sick for ever. To the right of the field was the Chicken Plant(another story for another time) that stunk to high heaven, so between the dump and and the CP, the South Royalton teams had an advantage. I was telling Stew about this and he said he remembers(scary he remembers anything) opposing players getting sick from the smell, guess we were just tougher. It is amazing that the dump was there for years, sending untold amount of whatever into the river and nobody caring, an enviromental nightmare, and I have no idea what they did to close the dump, I would guess they threw some dirt over it and that was the end.

I am out of time this morning, need to go play golf, so maybe tomorrow I will finish with the Tunbridge Dump.

LONG TIME COMING

Surprise, for those of you who check this often, a NEW post, not sure what I'm going to say but it's time to get something in print. Just a few news notes first,

1. We have a new granddaughter, Abagail Howe Rogers, born Oct 8th. Andrew, Sarah, and the girls all doing fine, Nancy is flying to Denver this week to help out for a few days, I will go at some point before she comes home.

2. One reason I am staying home is that my mother is in the hospital after more surgery on her leg and she has been having a tough time. She apparently had a heart attack yesterday, but I just talked with her on the phone, she seems to be better than yesterday, hope she improves as time go on.

3. Nancy and I just got back from a cruise, 10 days, we went to Aruba, Cartagena, Panama, Costa Rica, and Jamaica. The highlight of the trip was a trip through the locks of the Panama Canal. That was a amazing feat of engineering. The idea that it was built 100 years ago, with no computers, laser goodies, no big equipment makes it even more awesome. Worth the trip just to see the canal. The rest of the trip was also a lot of fun. In Jamaica, we took a trip back to the "White Witch" just to look at the course, the WW was Andrew's first job with Ritz Carlton. Jamaica has changed a lot since the last time we were there, lot of new construction, roads are much improved, and they have done a big job of cleaning up the road sides. Nancy and I had a great lunch at the Ritz beach club before heading back to the ship.

My brother Stew and his wife Merry are back in town for the winter, so its time to start our winter projects. I guess the big project this year is going to be redoing the kitchen cabinets, painting, new hardware, not a lot of fun but something that needs to be done. With Stew here we are back to Sunday Cook outs and Football...Nancy and Merry just love the football.

Hannah and family are doing fine, the twins are really take off, both crawling and are a lot of fun. Check Hannah blog for up to date pictures of the twins and Addie, super pics.

I hope to get back to my series on my military life in the next few weeks, for those of you who have been waiting. More soon.