בימת אורח: Garbology מאת יוסף הלפר

Last evening, I ventured out into the pouring rain, to purchase the library of a deceased Israeli writer  who had seen his heyday somewhere in the 1950's. I myself had barely heard of him, but I did recall selling a couple of his books out of my cheapies bin. In short, it seemed like there'd be a promising little load of collectibles there.

 

The very elderly, blue-haired widow and unnaturally blond daughter were there. The apartment hadn't been lived in for 5 years. It was like a dusty old time-capsule, with furnishings and books harking back to the writer's prime 50 years before. It was hard to see in there, gobs of  dust had coagulated into fuzzy stalactites hanging from dim  light bulbs.  In the end, I purchased a few hundred books in English, Hebrew, Yiddish and German, plus antique brass book ends.. I paid them the equivalent of $250, and all sides were satisfied. Then I schlepped it all down two flights of stairs in giant old mail bags (liberated from U.S. Postal Service), all the way asking myself, "How many more years can my knees take schlepping like this?. "

 

To make a long story even longer, I noticed that the trash bins outside were filled with the very same garbage bags I had spied the daughter stuffing earlier.  Looking around to make sure that they had  left, I proceeded to scavenge.

It disturbed me though, that not 3 feet away, stood a paper recycling bin. "What inconsiderate and lazy people" I thought, thus capturing some kind of MORAL HIGH-GROUND,( which is important for one's self esteem when surreptitiously digging through garbage). But then it occured to me that if they  HAD put the paper into the recycling bin, I wouldn't have been able to get my arm through the narrow opening.
 

Frustrated from finding nothing and getting soaked from the rain,  I said "screw this", and threw the remaining two trash bags into my van for analysis in the morning. It turns out that they were also filled with nothing more than old bank statements, electric bills, doctors bills and assorted worthless scraps, until the last item…a small binder with…… more worthless scraps.

 

I was about to chuck it all away, when something in that very last binder caught my eye, as if beckoning to me like some old whore on Allenby Street.   It was an envelope bearing the official seal of the Office of the Prime Minister. Excitedly, I wiped my hands on my pants as best I could, then carefully peeled open the yellowed envelope. It was a page-long, handwritten letter from David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founder, thanking the old widow for nothing in particular; but "The Old Man's" autograph falls into the catagory of a garbage picker's dream-find.  It will assuredly cover my $250 outlay and not least importantly, bring me the respect of dedicated dumpster divers  for years to come.