Community

I dumped the rubbish this evening. At 6:20 a couple of rubbish trucks come in a street nearby ours. At 6:15 we all come scurrying out like ants out of tunnels and position ourselves in the general vacinity waiting for the truck. You dump your food scraps in big buckets and you dump your general rubbish in the back of the rubbish truck. It's stinks and isn't the nicest of chores, in fact I don't like doing it at all and Steve is usually commissioned to do the task. But the more I think about dumping rubbish (and how to make less of it) the more I think about the sense of community here and the things that connect people together. Noni and I were standing there, watching the people gather, chatting to each other, catching up. In fact, people come out earlier to do just that. This evening the truck came rumbling up, backing up the street and a taxi driver was told to scoot into a lane off the side to make room for the truck. And the truck driver jumped out and yelled, 'hang on you lot! i'm not done backing up, that taxi driver is whinging about not being able to get out of the lane. ok, move back you lot, make room for me!!' All in good nature. And then when he'd finished backing up he jumped out and has a chat to the people gathered round and tells us more about the taxi driver whinging and wasn't it so annoying?? But noone was actually annoyed. The other night I popped out to the shops to get something like tissues, I can't remember. It was already ten in the evening and I bumped into an old guy who is Steve's customer. He came to us once as we were standing outside the storage and asked me to look at his medical report which said he was 89, had normal insides but perhaps his liver was a bit dicky. I told him as much and said why hadn't he asked his Doctor? He said the Doctor was no good and not worth talking to about it! Anyway, I saw him at the supermarket this night standing outside chatting with two equally old girls. We stopped and had a chat, 'How are you doing? Did you get your liver sorted?' 'Yeah, liver is fine and where are you living right now?' 'Well I haven't a clue of the exact address but it is there abouts (pointing and waving in the general direction)'. Then I see an old dog laying near one of the old girls (Tills and I affectionately call her Grandma Doggy). So I said, 'We live opposite that old dog and her owner!' 'Yeah, I know the place, I'll drop by and see you sometime' 'Great, well goodnight!'. Of course he won't drop by and see us sometime and that was officially only our second ever conversation! Just trying to say that it was after ten at night and there are still old grannies and pops (and their dogs) out on the streets having a yarn. There are heaps of examples, like the breakfast store we frequent and all the regulars that gather there every morning, chatting and catching up before work, or other commitments. Maybe I'll take some pics and put them on this blog. All that over dumping the rubbish this evening!!