Pottery Dump Hunting

Pottery Dump Hunting

“Sandy, do you want to go dump hunting today?” my mother called to me as I was coming down the stairs for breakfast. “It is not supposed to rain today for a change and this is the day they usually haul out the seconds and other imperfect things.”
One of the things I loved to do every summer when I was growing up was go to the pottery dumps in the nearby towns and look for pottery that had been rejected for one reason or another. What was nice about these small town dumps was that they never deliberately smashed up the pottery. Most of the time a person could collect quite a few treasures in an hour or so of picking through the area. I always looked for certain things that I proudly brought home and displayed in my room. Sometimes it was a decorative piece of pottery such as a rabbit or a squirrel. I was beginning to have quite a collection on the shelf in my room. I wondered what I would find today.
“Where will we go first, Mom,” I asked?
“I think there are three potteries that have the best picks,” she answered. “Let’s go to the closest one first, and if there is nothing there we can try the next one a few miles down the road.”
“Can we get hamburgers on the way home?” I would always ask. There was a little hamburger joint on the way home. They were piled high with “the works” just the way I liked them.
“After all that digging through pottery, I think we will be ready for hamburgers and French fries,” she replied.
Jumping into the old green Chevy, we started to back out of the driveway.
Mom reviewed once more whether we had all of our dump hunting supplies. “Do you have your oldest shoes on, Sandy?”
“Yes, you know I always wear my old brown scruffy shoes,” I said laughing.
“What about your old canvas gloves so you don’t get cut,” Mom asked.
“Yes, they are right here,” I said.
It took about a half hour to get to the first dump. She parked the car and walked through the gate. We weren’t trespassing. There were no restrictions back then, and anyone could take a basket with them and carry out anything that had been thrown on the dump.
“Looks as if we are in luck today,” Mom said. “We are here early and the pickin’ is good.”
I ran over to the first area where there was a plentiful supply of decorative pottery. “Hey, Mom,” I shouted with glee. “Here are some rabbits for my collection,” I said picking up one piece and looking it over for cracks, chips, or blotched paint. “Here’s a good one,” I shouted across the lot for Mom to look.
“That looks similar to the one you found the last time we were here,” she commented. “Look what I found,” she said as she held up a pretty turquoise vase. “It only has one little flaw near the bottom of it.”
Picking up one piece after another and rejecting them because of one thing or another, I finally reached over and found another rabbit that matched the first one only this one was sitting differently. “Look what I found this time,” I shouted excitedly. “I now have a matching set.”
“I found a match to go with the first vase I picked up,” Mom proudly held up the two vases. They were the same color and were in good shape.
Just then a couple more people walked through the gate waiting to discover their treasures.
After surveying the area where the rabbits had been pitched, I picked up a couple more and put them in my basket. I moved on to another area that had brown squirrels with a place on the end to plant flowers. They were a very pretty brown color with green grass painted around the bottom. Several had the tail broken off, but finally I was lucky enough to find one that was in perfect shape except that the glaze had a little run here and there. That didn’t matter to me. I hoped I could find a pair of these planters, and I turned over one after another. It’s a good thing I had my gloves on or my hands would be cut to no end. “Yes,” I said to myself, “My Mom sure knows how to go dump hunting and not get cut with the broken pieces.
The day was warming up and sweat was running down my face. My basket was almost full of treasures. Rabbits, squirrels, and other small whatnots made my day.
Mom and I both had a basket in our hand as we made our way toward the parking lot. “Where are we going next?” I asked her looking forward to another productive hour or so of dump picking.
“Let’s go to the one on Sawmill Road. Remember that one from last month?” she asked.
“Yes, I think so. Is that the pottery where we got the little cream colored sugar bowl and cream pitcher with the blue stripes around them?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s the one, Sandy,” Mom said. “I think that’s all we’re going to have time for today, but we will come back another day.”
“Do they make anything else?” I asked. At my age I wasn’t too excited about cream pitchers and sugar bowls. I emptied my basket of treasures into a sturdy tomato box with handles and headed toward the next pottery.
“I’m starting to get hungry,” Mom said. “We have done some work this morning,” she said laughing. “Did you have fun?”
“I sure did,” I said. “I just love my rabbits and squirrels.”
Walking in the gate I could see lots of unbroken pottery. “We’re in luck, Mom,” I said. There is more cream and blue pottery. Maybe we can find something good. Only three or four people were rooting through the piles looking for some treasure to take home. “Let’s go, Mom,” I said. There was a lot of broken pottery chards underneath the pieces that looked like they had just been dumped out. My feet began to feel the rough pieces through my old brown shoes. I didn’t want to get cut but my hands were protected by the heavy gloves.
“Over here,” Mom shouted. “Here’s some good stuff!”
She held up a small salt shaker. “Sandy, help me find the pepper shaker to this set, and it’s yours,” she said.
I carefully walked over the uneven pile of crushed down pottery and looked down for a minute surveying the ruins. There was cream and blue pottery everywhere, but it looked as if most of it was broken. As I picked up a piece here and there, I found the match to the salt shaker. Yes, it looked good. “Here it is! Here it is! Mom.”
Holding the two shakers side by side, I checked to see if they were two salt shakers or two pepper shakers or a set of salt and pepper. Luck was with us that day. There was one salt shaker and one pepper shaker. It was the same pattern as the sugar bowl and cream pitcher she had found on the dump last month.
“But Mom, I can’t find anything to put in my basket,” I said sadly looking around for something I could retrieve from the pile of rubble. I walked to the other end of the lot where an employee was bringing out a wheelbarrow of new pottery. I crossed my fingers and made a wish. “Please, let me find something, God,” I said. “I want something to take home and we are running out of time and besides that we are getting hungry,” I prayed quietly.
I stood back while he dumped the treasures of the wheelbarrow. “Crash,” I could hear the precious pottery breaking as it hit the ground. My heart felt sad that perfectly good stuff was being destroyed. Once the wheelbarrow was empty, he turned and went back into the building.
Mom and I walked over to the new heap of pottery to see if we could find anything, anything at all that was not broken to smithereens.
“This pottery is pretty heavy and sturdier than it looks, Sandy,” Mom said. “I’m sure we will find something to put in your basket.”
My gloved hand turned over a few pieces. Most were broken, but some only had a few minor things wrong with them. I uncovered a pottery dog about six inches high. It was black and white and had a shiny glaze on it. “Yep,” I said. “This is a keeper.” I put it into my basket thrilled that I had found something to add to my dog collection.
Mom looked at her watch. “Time for cheeseburgers. Are you ready to go?” she asked.
“I’m ready! I’m starving!” I said.