Have you seen a pickup truck drive around your neighborhood with a lot of junk in the back? What do you call them? Some have called them junk dealers, “those Mexicans,” jerks with their trucks, etc… I heard these and many more references to these individuals that drive around all day sometimes 7 days a week picking up the things we throw away. When the Green movement begun everyone jumped on the bandwagon of recycling and how it’s everyone’s responsibility to recycle. I try as much as I can to follow through with that but I’m trying. Today I had a lot of metal items to throw out and I remember running into a young Latino man that helped me get rid of some scrap metal before. He was smiling from ear to ear and very respectful giving me eye contact as we spoke. I quickly realized that his reading level is not where it should be but he try’s by sounding out the word as he writes. He gave me his card and told me to give him a call whenever I had more scrap metal to throw out so I called him today.
The tough part was that I had all this stuff on a third floor and the temperature is close to 80 and well I’m not the lightest guy on my feet! I could have made him go up and down the stairs by himself to get everything but when I saw him again he was smiling ear to ear. Does he really enjoy what he does for a living? He must because he extended his hand said hello and got to putting this stuff onto his truck all with a smile. Has anyone gone out of their way to acknowledge people like him? Do people realize that the work he does saves TONS of metal that could have gone to a landfill? I can’t imagine the staggering numbers in tonnage of metal that is saved from alleys and curbs on a yearly basis all done by people like him. They do it for free for us because they take it away but they do turn over a profit once it is sold to a company that melts it down and sold off to someone else, it’s truly a WIN WIN for everyone involved.
I had forgotten one more thing that I wanted to throw out and it was a small window AC that most likely doesn’t work anymore. So I called him back and he was only a few blocks away he parks and I hand him the AC and nothing but a big smile on his face. I think it’s safe to say that he is at Peace with himself and grateful that today he was able to collect a lot of good heavy metal pieces that will most likely turn into a good profit for himself. So why do people look down on people like him? Well I know some people just simply see them as “dirty Mexicans” such a horrible generalization of someone but that’s what I usually hear. At times I will start going down that road to see what people truly feel and once they realize that I’m not fighting them they let loose on how they really feel. I never understood why you would look down on someone for your careless nature of throwing things out that could be reused by someone else.
Shouldn’t he be the one giving you the look of ‘what are you doing!?’
His smile brought Peace to me because I knew that I helped him earn a living today as he helped, not only, me but all of us by making sure that the metal doesn't go to a landfill.
Thanks Miguel!
Peace/AMOR
Gerardo
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