The universal human impulse to throw shopping carts into running water
All kinds of garbage, actually, but particularly shopping carts. And bicycles.
When I hiked a lot, I was astonished at the things I used to find in the woods. Like way, way back in the woods. A whole-ass engine block was one.
We lived beside a creek for years and were forever finding garbage in it. I remember a refrigerator once. They could have dumped it anywhere along our backroad, but it was always into running water.
That’s got to be something deep in the human psyche.
Today, as I came over the bridge where I took this picture, there were two boys playing a line into the water.
“What on earth are you doing?” says I.
“Magnet fishing.”
“Oh! For scrap? What’s the best thing you’ve ever pulled up?”
The lead boy looked excited and said, “a bicycle wheel!”
February 17, 2025 — 6:13 pm
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