Scrap metal and college kids

The people who owned our house before us were packrats of the worst kind. They left so much junk in the garage it took me two pickup truck-loads to the dump just to make space to park cars. And left behind were boxes of weird metal parts to things, old radiators, transmission housings from a tractor, copper pipes from failed or completed plumbing projects, and an assortment of pumps and other non-functioning gadgets. Why does someone choose to fill up their space with junk?

I had always meant to load up the truck and head to a salvage dealer with this crap, but doing so just wasn’t high on my list of priorities.

My college-age son needed some money and suddenly I remembered the junk in the garage. I told him if he took it to the scrap dealer he could keep whatever they paid for it. To my amazement, he showed up today with a buddy in tow and they had the metal loaded up in less than an hour. He called later, proud as he could be that they made $70. He said the scrap dealer—somewhere in the remote Southernmost Illinois back country—was one of the oddest places he’d ever been in his life. I could only imagine, and was so glad I didn’t spend an afternoon going there myself. He and his friend were of course on their way to the supermarket, to spend the $70 on stocking the pantry.

And I’m proud too. Proud of the newly-cleaned garage, proud that all that junk will be melted down and made into something new, and proud that my son learned a valuable lesson about how to find abundance in the most unlikely places.

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