I must have been about six or seven years old and I saw 'our garbage picker,' he with the loud rusty truck, at a rummage sale. I was as dumbstruck seeing him there as most kids are seeing their teacher at the grocery store. My folks explained that he was a regular at rummage and estate sales. He was a dealer, or at least a picker for a dealer, and in fact my folks had seen him dressed-up at supper clubs -- driving a new, rust-free Cadillac no less. It shattered forever my dreams of this guy being some poor man who needed to pick through garbage to survive.

It also turned me onto all the possibilities of garbage.

On weekly garbage days I walked with my friends to school, looking over the garbage with speculative eyes... I never saw anything of interest. Just cans void of food, paper plates and wads of things girly me wouldn't dare touch to move aside. Then one week, there it was -- the holy grail of garbage!

Piled at the curb were not just bags I couldn't see through, or metal cans with cans and boxes popping out, but actual things that excited me. I stopped about 5 feet away and stared as my friends continued on their way. I stopped and pretended to fix my shoelaces as I waited for them to walk on ahead leaving me alone with my treasure...

I swallowed hard and then put my hand on the first doll, a vintage Japanese lady who looked very much like the Asian doll shown here. I picked her up and inspected her. Other than a smudge on her nose, she was perfect! I began to reach for the other doll peeping there in the newspaper, when another hand flashed there first -- my friends had backtracked and caught me!

But instead of having to explain myself and my garbage picking as I had feared, I was having to defend my treasures!

There were few dolls and trinkets, and four greedy girls; it soon became apparent that I was lucky to get my Japanese lady.

Then I spotted a real gem -- a ten gallon aquarium used as a terrarium. One corner was badly cracked, with a significant chunk of glass missing, but the plants and moss were still alive and green -- and the driftwood with its glued-on frog was so cute! (Hey, it was the early 70's, man.) We girls put our trinket trifles to the side and quickly cooperated to lift the very heavy terrarium and find a spot in the bushes to hide it in while we were in school. We had no time to do anything else, we were almost late as it was!

We ran the rest of the way to school and pinkie-swore we'd meet right after that last bell and return to the treasure terrarium together. Then we'd all decide what to do with it -- if it was still there.

True to our word, we all met after school and we ran to the spot where we had left it -- would it still be there?!

It was. But that's when the problems began. It was the days of 'finders keepers' after all, so it should have been mine, all mine -- but I knew there was no way to sneak that big thing into the house... And I knew my parents would 'spaz' if they knew I'd been garbage picking. I knew I couldn't take it home, and this left three territorial girls bickering for terrarium rights.

Fearing that their arguing would get us all busted by the garbage owner or a neighbor, I begged them to stop. They in return decided that since I had dibs I was to pick who got the spoils. I naturally picked the girl who lived closest to me so that I could have visitation rights.

And so we carried that damaged ten gallon aquarium, with its dirt, plants and plastic frog glued onto the driftwood home two blocks.

To this day, I have never felt more like a pirate.