Chester Chatter: Ah, those trips to the dump

By Ruthie Douglas
©2020 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Yippee! Yippee! School was out and summer vacation had begun for me and my sister.

My Uncle Kenny had a butcher shop and small grocery in front of our house. The shop was closed on Mondays and my sister and I would hang out with him.

We really liked to go to the landfill dump, which at one time sat where the Blue Grass Hills Apartments now are near Lower Clinton Street in Springfield.

The family who owned the dump raised many pigs that also lived on the garbage.  The pigs knew the sound of Uncle Kenny’s truck and knew as well that there would be some good eating when he arrived.

Marie and I enjoyed seeing the pigs even though they kind of scared us. Come fall weather the pigs were butchered and families who had signed up for one could pick up their meat. In today’s world, we probably would never have eaten a pig that grew up in dump.

 Scene and heard

Happy birthday to Mert Graham of Springfield.

Oh how I am enjoying talking on Zoom with my nephews in New Mexico and Texas. We have so much to share.

Ella Huyler, long time school nurse at Chester-Andover Elementary School, has died. She was 96. She and her husband Dick moved to Chester with their seven children from Connecticut. The family was involved in many boards and communities activities.

Wishing my great-granddaughter Hendrix Barboza a happy 10th birthday coming up Aug. 3.