Post by Ken Corbett on Feb 18, 2008 12:31:16 GMT -5
I published this piece first on my other site, but it's a true legend.
Piled Higher and Deeper
I'm surprised at the number of stories about tire dumping I hear when I wear my official Tire-Free Rivers T-shirt. It shows my avatar, but bigger.
Just this morning, my friend Mark Visbach admired my shirt, then related this legend to me over coffee.
"I remember back about twenty years or so ago, they were still dumping old tires into the headpond. You know, the community just upriver from the Mactaquac dam on the Saint John river.
'It seems all year long, the local folks hoarded all the old tires they could find from the body shops and junkyards. Then every day after New Years, they'd start selling raffle tickets to the general public.
Come March 15 or so every spring, they'd truck all the tires onto the thick ice out on the middle of the headpond, where the water is over 100 feet deep. Crews worked like monkeys all day, stacking tires in a pile and tying them down with nylon ropes as they went. One rope was tied from the pile to a clock on shore, to record the moment of submergence.
Buyers would fill in their best guess exactly which day, hour, minute and second the pile would sink through the rotting ice. One could buy as many tickets as one wanted, just fill in a different time and hand over your buck. If the time marked on your ticket was the closest to the actual moment, you'd get half the pot, and some local charity would get the other half.
Then when every last tire was tied down, the community watched with mounting interest, hoping to witness the pile sinking to its eternal rest, or until the next ice age, whichever comes first. Each was hoping to win the big jackpot.
It was all for a good cause, I'm sure. How many years did this go on? Then one day, some enlightened saint whom history has forgotten convinced them to stop."
I try not to judge yesterday's deeds through today's eyes. Their mindset was different. They saw the world in a different way.
But all those tires. I wonder if there's any way to get them out? Maybe the nylon is still intact, and they could be hooked out. Could the tire recyclers manage the glut?
I bet there must be some old pictures of this event around somewhere.
Ken
Piled Higher and Deeper
I'm surprised at the number of stories about tire dumping I hear when I wear my official Tire-Free Rivers T-shirt. It shows my avatar, but bigger.
Just this morning, my friend Mark Visbach admired my shirt, then related this legend to me over coffee.
"I remember back about twenty years or so ago, they were still dumping old tires into the headpond. You know, the community just upriver from the Mactaquac dam on the Saint John river.
'It seems all year long, the local folks hoarded all the old tires they could find from the body shops and junkyards. Then every day after New Years, they'd start selling raffle tickets to the general public.
Come March 15 or so every spring, they'd truck all the tires onto the thick ice out on the middle of the headpond, where the water is over 100 feet deep. Crews worked like monkeys all day, stacking tires in a pile and tying them down with nylon ropes as they went. One rope was tied from the pile to a clock on shore, to record the moment of submergence.
Buyers would fill in their best guess exactly which day, hour, minute and second the pile would sink through the rotting ice. One could buy as many tickets as one wanted, just fill in a different time and hand over your buck. If the time marked on your ticket was the closest to the actual moment, you'd get half the pot, and some local charity would get the other half.
Then when every last tire was tied down, the community watched with mounting interest, hoping to witness the pile sinking to its eternal rest, or until the next ice age, whichever comes first. Each was hoping to win the big jackpot.
It was all for a good cause, I'm sure. How many years did this go on? Then one day, some enlightened saint whom history has forgotten convinced them to stop."
I try not to judge yesterday's deeds through today's eyes. Their mindset was different. They saw the world in a different way.
But all those tires. I wonder if there's any way to get them out? Maybe the nylon is still intact, and they could be hooked out. Could the tire recyclers manage the glut?
I bet there must be some old pictures of this event around somewhere.
Ken
