Letter: Residents should be thankful for convenient garbage pickup

Tuesday, Dec. 23, 1997 | 10:49 a.m.

So some people are griping about sound pollution caused by the mechanical operation of tons of steel and cast-iron equipment performing a distasteful job while we sleep.

Obviously those few people seeking to be heard in this metropolis of 1.5 million souls have never had to deal with their own garbage. I've lived where such a service was a space-age myth. Now I can roll over and smile when awakened by the bumping, thumping and clanging of the truck emptying a huge apartment dumpster. "Oh, good," I mumble before drifting back to sleep. "Somebody else is picking up my garbage."

And they apparently never had to wrestle plastic bags of cans, bottles, newspapers, junk mail, potato peelings, apple cores and worn-out coffee grounds into an upholstered backseat, drive it down a long winding, rutted road to no-man's land and tug it out while hoping the bag doesn't split.

They also probably never visited an elderly widow with a sagging six-room house crammed four feet high with rat-breeding years of such bags because she no longer drove. Redneck neighbors with pickups couldn't be bothered, and unwanted house cats were regularly tossed into her yard.

What a smelly mess we'd be in without around-the-clock garbage pickup. And potential traffic jams. I advise both sides: "Get a life" and "Thanks, guys."

Viola R. Garrison-Cota