Time In A Bottle

      In the summer of 1967 my mother was interested in old bottles. Some old bottles could become valuable as antiques. She liked  them because they were old, pretty and came in different colors and shapes.

      One day mom asked  "Patty would you like to go bottle hunting with me?"

      "Sounds like fun.Let's go. But where?"  I asked

      "We can start with the trash piles around our neighborhood." she answered

        Away we went in my 1962 Buick Special. We drove around raiding every Trash pile we could find. After a a few hours of this stop and go hunting,she decided we needed to go to some other place.

          Mom Thought about it for a few minutes and said  "We can go to the dump across the road from my house."

          "That seems like a better idea." I answered. "Let's go see what we can find."

        The dump sat back from the main road and was fenced in with big logs.This place buzzed with activity,as flea market and antique dealers were there, claiming the vehicles, loaded with trash,as they entered. Ugly fights arose, when competing dealers tried to claim the same trash pile. While the dealers were arguing--------- Boom!  A TV exploded from the hot Florida sun beating down on the picture tube, and glass was flying everywhere.This quieted everyone for a few moments, but they were soon right back arguing and fighting. All this scared mom.
       
        "Let's go to some other place."  Mom exclaimed. "This one is too dangerous."

          I breathed a sigh of relief. "Where shall we go now?"

          "We can go to one of the illegal dumps.There is a wooded area near county line road on the Dade-Broward line." she replied

          Away we went to the illegal dump.

          As we drove slowly down the road in the wooded area, we saw many trash piles in a ditch.I stopped the car and we walked to the ditch. I picked a pile and mom picked a pile,where some paint cans, leaves and boards were heaped up. I  stepped on a board and crack! The board broke in half and my foot went down.I felt sticky goo on my foot and shin.As I lifted my foot out, black liquid tar oozed over my white sandal and half my shin and pant leg. Leaves from the trash pile stuck to the tar!
          "Help! mom!"  I yelled
Mom looked up and burst into hysterical laughter. After a few minutes, we looked around for rags to clean off the tar,but none were to be found. As a last resort she picked up a stick and scraped most of the tar from my foot.She had a small knife and cut the strap of my sandal and pant leg.We tried to wipe the tar off with grass and weeds,but it only stuck to our hands.We laughed all the way home.What a mess we had to clean up.We did not find any old bottles, and we never hunted bottles in trash piles again. But we did try looking in some flea markets and never found any old bottles.