Nevada Coin Minting 
It's like I asked Alvin down the street, who would've thought we could have such excitement 'round here? People still talk about the cat fight two years ago. "Jolly" Thompson's tabby has hid in disgrace ever since. Ought to, letting a powder puff named Mimsey cut him up like that. Mrs. Ames sure never let "Jolly" Thompson forget, neither, and her Mimsey has got right fat what with the extra attention and all.
Today was different, and all because the county hired a new garbage disposal company. We didn't even mind the strangers starting to wander through our yards pretty as you please, long as it was only for this one day.
I first heard it when Mavis Jordan--lives down a block on the left--was talking a streak over to the Safeway. She's the checker in the Fast Lane where she can get a news bulletin out faster than she can scan your groceries. The old folks like her, though, cause she keeps them in touch with everything.
"They're going to make us use 'em," Mavis said as she kind of fell into rhythm with the beep beep beep of her scanner. "Ugly, black garbage battleships."
Mrs. Miller, from two places back in line, chimed in. "They're so big! I laid awake last night worrying how I could ever manage to move them. I broke my other arm just this year. I just don't know how I'll ever manage alone."
Well, you know how it goes. Everybody was against them, even had a couple of lively meetings about it. But sure as commercials, they kept on coming. Fact is, after they were delivered, most folks liked 'em. They were big, all right, but with them big wheels, they were easier to handle than all our small smelly ones we had been banging around our yards.
Oh, there were still a few problems. My wife was one of them that worried someone would steal ours and we would have to pay for it. You see, we all had our own numbers assigned, stamped right on the can. But Thelma was worried for nothing. Everybody had one. Who would want to steal it? My only complaint was they were so big they were hard to clean out when the smell got too much.
But just to show you what kind of place we live in, pretty soon the Sequoia Disposal Company showed how public spirited they wanted to be and gave us an extra one. They would pick up our full ones and leave a clean empty one all at the same time. That way you didn't have to worry about whose germs might still be in them. Both of them had your number so you knew it was yours. Old Mrs. Miller even got to like them. 'Specially when she threw out her purse by mistake one day. Wallet wasn't in it, so no identification, but all those mysterious valuable things women keep in purses were gone. Poor Mrs. Miller spent a couple more sleepless nights over it until somebody from the Sequoia Disposal Company dropped by with her purse. They had found it and traced her can number through the computer so they could return it to her!
After Mavis got that around town, nobody objected no more. Except "Jolly", of course. Mrs. Thompson told my wife she's real careful to get everything out of their trash that has their name or address on it because "Jolly" is still being ornery and hauls all their trash down to the dumpster at City Hall. Just his way of protesting, I guess. 'Course he's always been the suspicious type, and I reckon he's getting too old to change now even if them new cans of ours are easier to use.
But they were still ugly. 'Specially on collection day, the clipped lawns and flower beds and fancy shrubs we all worked so hard on seemed to just disappear 'cause all you could see was them big, bulky, black monsters lined up like crows over roadkill.
Then somebody got the bright idea of painting them. Naturally that led to the idea Mavis is taking credit for (though I heard Mrs. Miller say it first myself)--a neighborhood contest for the best decorated can! And it just kind of grew from there 'till finally today was the big day. All this from trash cans! The best decorated can contest and a giant neighborhood yard sale, finishing up with a block party this evening. John Sashumi, the president of Sequoia Disposal Company, is one of the judges and he even donated $1,000 in prizes that he's giving away at the party.
This morning early was a sight, I'm telling you. People up at dawn that never even knew there was a sunrise. Everybody setting up their goods for the sale, calling back and forth to each other, giving each other a hand before it was even asked. Some say it's because of the TV crew coming in from the Evening News, but not me. I expect people discovered what it feels like to be neighbors and got to like it. Seen it happening all through this whole thing.
Why, even the teenagers quit hanging out and griping and joined in pretty as you please. Never heard so much laughing, nor seen so much smiling as they's been today, teenagers, grownups, kids -- everybody.
We all spent the day buying each other's junk and peeking into each other's lives a bit. You can tell a lot about a body from his castoffs. They weren't castoffs always. Something in us made us buy them and hold on to them.
George Harper, "Jolly's" buddy next door to him, had all them ship models. It seems a marvel to me that a man like George, whose car is so full of dings and dents from his running into anything that don't get out of his way, could get his hands and head together to build them things. Loved them, too. Priced them so high everybody was laughing. His wife, Irma, allowed as how she just knew from the beginning he wouldn't get them out from under foot and that he hoped nobody would pay such a high price for them. They were all gone by the end of the day, all 73 of them. He didn't sell 'em though. Every kid that came by and lusted after them got at least one. Got 'em for free, too. 'Course some of us kids were a shade on the high side of 12. Didn't matter how old we were. George seemed happy someone would love them the way he did.
Lordy, the things I found out about people. Won't mention who had a whole passel of lace undies and skimpy nighties in a box near the back of her table. They seemed to get gone mighty quick, too. Mrs. Morris saved me a bit on food. Her last boy just left for the army and she said she didn't have to worry no more about another depression and her family starving. So she was clearing out her pantry. Said she hoped she never saw another box of cereal again. Her tables did remind me a bit of Saturday morning cartoons, lined up with products as tight as the commercials that had caught her kids' fancies.
I could go on and on because it was quite a day. Thirty-eight houses in the neighborhood, thirty-eight sets of lives spread out on the lawn. It struck me it would be mighty interesting to see what they was ashamed to put out there for sale. They must'a had some mighty good laughs down to the Sequoia Disposal Company.
Mavis come by my place several times. The Safeway had brought people in from all over to run the store so's our folks could be home for the happenings. The Safeway manager was one of them on the TV, and he allowed as how he was real happy to do it because Safeway was a neighbor, too. Don't know what Mavis woulda done if she'd had to work. Like to wore herself out as it was collecting the news for next week. I expect Mavis's news reports will be a far sight meatier than the TV people's.
Weren't just us neighbors, neither. Folks came pouring in from all over. I guess the old saw is right enough, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." We had to block off the streets they was so many people. Didn't seem to matter much how far away they had to park, they still kept coming. Heard one woman all dressed up in swishing pink tell her husband, "I told you it was worth the drive, Jacob. It's a slice of middle America." First I thought she was making fun of us, but the tone of her voice was kind of wishful, like she might have memories she wanted to find, too.
I can't say I was completely unhappy when the buyers started drifting away in the late afternoon. Me and my neighbors, we're like most folks. We like company. We like getting to know our neighbors, but we're pretty touchy about our privacy, too. Most of us don't do nothing the world couldn't know about, but it's our lives just the same. We'd just as soon choose for ourselves who we share our lives with, thank you.
Anyway, pretty soon they were all gone and it was just us folks left. John Sashumi--he don't live in our neighborhood, but after today he's one of us now, too--allowed as how he ought to get on with the judging so the TV people could make their deadline and we could get on with our barbecue like we planned for the cool of the evening.
Lord! The way people disappeared, you'd a thought President Clinton was a'fixing to give us a heart-to-heart naked on TV. Then a rumbling started to grow loud like a storm off beyond Parker's Ridge. But it was all those garbage cans getting rolled to the street.
What a sight! Sequoia Disposal Company had made a special delivery for us so's we could decorate both of 'em, so every house had two cans lined up the streets. They wasn't ugly no more. They were painted with tulips, daisies, roses, violets, faces, clowns, portraits, cartoons, landscapes; everything under the sun we could think of framing our numbers pretty as you please!
John Sashumi and the other judges started up by the water tower on Elm Street and paraded up and down all the streets followed by all the neighbors laughing, and hooting, and ahhhhing at every can.
When we got back to the water tower again, John Sashumi allowed as how it was real hard to pick winners, they were all so good. When the cheering died down, he said he was real proud that he and Sequoia Disposal Company could take part in this with us. He told how anxious they were to be real good neighbors. Promised to keep the cost of the disposal collection service real low. Said he was determined to be a good environmentalist and he would recycle everything he could. Said even better, he would try to find ever way possible to make the trash he collected from us to pay for itself. Sequoia Disposal Company had invested in the very best equipment to go with these beautiful cans he was judging here. They went and bought the very best computers money could buy so they could use modern technology to make our lives better.
And just like they done for old Mrs. Miller, they would use them expensive computers if we ever needed help from them. They would keep track of everything the best they could so if we ever throwed anything away by accident, they would try to help us get it back.
I won't tell you who got the first prize, 'cause everybody won the best prize of all. We got our neighbors back. The barbecue was really something. I must a gained another 10 pounds. And all them fancy garbage cans was overflowing with the stuff we didn't sell.
One thing I forgot to tell you. Looks like we got more excitement coming now, too. John Sashumi said the investors from Sequoia Disposal Company are so pleased with the way they been received here, they're going to open another new company here. It's not real clear what it is, but they say it's something to do with marketing. You know, they're going to sell--now what was that word they used? uh. uh--demographics, that's it, demographics. Don't be ashamed, I didn't know what it meant either 'till I looked it up. Means "the sta-tis-tical data of a population." Point is they're going to pay us from time to time to help them out with some surveys. Even using the same numbers on our garbage cans to help them keep track. Said it would make it easier for us.
And we had us a Saturday we'll remember right enough. Might even get a bit more entertainment out of it. All of us heard John Sashumi ourselves telling about the new company. But we can't wait to hear Mavis take credit for the news to the beep beep beep of her scanners. * *
THE SEQUOIA MARKETING RESEARCH COMPANY
3342 Industrial Park Drive
St. Rose, California 95406
Memo To: BOARD OF DIRECTORS, WORLD MARKETING CORPORATION
From: JOHN SASHUMI, PRESIDENT, SEQUOIA MARKETING RESEARCH
COMPANY AND SEQUOIA DISPOSAL COMPANY
Date: JULY 30, 1996
Subject: SIX MONTH REPORT ON PILOT PROGRAM FOR MARKETING
RESEARCH IN AMERICAN MARKET
The pilot project has been successful beyond our greatest expectations. While our development team had anticipated that the close monitoring of the trash disposal habits of Americans would yield valuable market information relating to product use and preferences, brand loyalties, and developing trends in new product acceptance, they vastly underestimated the importance of the raw data. Our planned market targets for the results of our marketing strategy (IBM, General Foods, Kimberly-Clark, Kodak, etc.) are still an important factor in our anticipated revenue; however, I believe they will eventually become secondary to the other applications that are beginning to suggest themselves. Our data will become of vast importance to research teams in all the social sciences including psychology, sociology, criminology--the list is endless. Governmental applications alone will account for more contracts than we had originally anticipated. Our data will provide the most reliable basis ever available for planning new tax structures, monitoring compliance with drug laws, and other applications of great value to every government agency at every level. My evaluation team has barely begun the enormous task of analysis facing them, but I feel confident to recommend our proceeding with Phase Two. I believe that our original plans for Phase Two, which called for a slow expansion to a broader community base throughout America, should be re-evaluated to accelerate the expansion and to include other countries throughout the world. We have developed a handbook for use in setting up both the disposal companies and the accompanying market research companies.
One last recommendation. While I realize our resources will be somewhat strained during Phase Two, my evaluation team has expressed the belief that one additional factor would add immeasurably to our total analysis of the markets by giving us access to information at both ends of the consumer spectrum--the acquisition of the data banks currently being compiled by the grocery and retail scanners.
JS/jh
cc Chairman of the Board, World Marketing Corporation
Department of Data Evaluation
Department of Development
file
The End
Email:Jerry Holmes
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