In a message dated 8/6/2007 11:38:38 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

But...why would they end up in the dump tho...and not under  the
porch...or decorating around the yard, garden...etc.  I guess  since I'm
not compulsively neat...I don't easily see why such things as  spikes or
cartridge casings, would be gathered up and discarded in to  a
dump


Perhaps as punishment. Many years back, I had the fun of  working with toy 
marbles and delivered papers at various conferences on hand  made and machine 
made marbles. I received lots of comments back from people who  played marbles 
as kids, as adults, in the military, and then got their kids and  grandchildren 
started. Several people reported their stern mothers punished them  by 
dropping their cherished marble bags down the privy (where they were sure not  going 
to dig to recover them). The late Paul Schumacher loaned me a collection  he 
reported recovered from a privy in Half Moon Bay, California. And, Gary  
Breschini and Trudy Haverstat loaned me a collection to photograph they also  found 
clustered together in a privy. So, based on these known examples, I would  
suggest that a parent could have punished the kid by dumping his railroad spike  
and train-flattened bullet shell collection in the dump. Heck, I could easily 
 imagine a parent horrified to learn the kid was out flattening bullet shells 
 with trains running past at high speed; fear of lost eyes or worse.
 
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.



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