THE LAST WORD
Davidson, Osha
THE LAST WORD Osha Davidson Hunting and Gathering To the occupants of cars speeding down the stretch of highway between Calamus and Grand Mound in eastern Iowa he barely exists: a momentary blur...
...I ask if he really believes that...
...Sometimes, especially in the summer, you will encounter an entire family collecting cans together, their battered car parked off to the side of the road...
...Just wait...
...A lot worse...
...For his part, he is as oblivious to the passing cars as they are to him...
...He isn't fooled by the seeming worth-lessness of ordinary brown paper bags, though...
...Even with weakening eyesight, he is expert at distinguishing the valuable from the worthless in the trash that litters the back roads...
...It's the same old story," the old man says as he kicks with his good leg at what turns out to be an empty Doritos bag...
...When they got there, they found that the judge had gone to a meeting but had left behind a recorded message informing them they had lost their farm...
...But what good does complaining do...
...A year and a half ago, when the farm economy went completely bust and the company laid off anyone who wasn't immediate family, he took to scouring the roads that crisscross the flat treeless land just west of the Mississippi, in search of cans...
...Every day, weather permitting, he walks these roads collecting the cans, which bring a nickel each at a local convenience store...
...Can-hunting is more usually a solitary activity, done by farmers and laid-off factory workers while the kids are at school...
...Those little cellophane bags can be buggers, though," he admits in a reedy voice that is often lost in the wind which blows steady and cold from the northwest...
...He picks at the dirt and gravel that fill its many crevices and then he holds the scrap of metal outstretched in front of him...
...He walks slowly but steadily through the ditch beside the road, peering through thick-lensed glasses at the ground in front of him...
...It's the little guy who gets hurt...
...THE LAST WORD Osha Davidson Hunting and Gathering To the occupants of cars speeding down the stretch of highway between Calamus and Grand Mound in eastern Iowa he barely exists: a momentary blur against the empty, early-winter fields that flank the road on either side...
...When the light hits them right they can trick you...
...He sold the land years ago and moved to town, and when times got tough he went to work in a nearby family-owned business...
...And things are going to get worse, you know...
...DENNIS NECHVATAL the old man says...
...People think they've got it tough now...
...At sixty-nine, his pace is slow, but he can cover a minimum of eight miles a day—a distance that translates into ten to twelve dollars in cans...
...My knee doesn't work too good any more so I poke around with my foot before I bend over...
...From time to time he stops, reaches into a patch of weeds, and withdraws an aluminum can which he shakes dry and places carefully into the white plastic garbage bag he carries...
...This time he is in luck—it is a can, crushed almost paper-thin by the wheels of a car or truck...
...You do what you have to to get by, that's all...
...In a given fifty-mile stretch, you are likely to see one or two gleaners wading through the weeds, plastic bags thrown over one, shoulder...
...Osha Davidson is a free-lance writer based in Mechanicsville, Iowa...
...No," he says and smiles...
...I still get fooled sometimes...
...He kicks again at something shining up from beneath a clump of dry brown grass...
...He smiles...
...He regards his find for a moment and then he lowers the crushed can gently into the half-filled bag and continues on down the road...
...He lived through the dust bowl on a farm in Kansas and then moved to Iowa and scraped together the cash to buy a thirty-five-acrc farm...
...His children moved away, a daughter to a good job out East, a son to Des Moines, where he is still looking for work...
...One woman told me she and her husband had walked the road in front of their farm to get gas money so they could drive to their foreclosure hearing over in the county seat...
...You might catch AIDS...
...There is growing competition for cans along the Iowa roads...
...I just tell people that to cut down on the competition...
...Say, be careful picking those things up," he says, deadpan, when I hand him a can...
...They can be a gold mine, he says, because they often hide a six-pack tossed out the window by a teen-ager who panicked when what looked like a sheriff's car appeared suddenly in the rearview mirror...
...He is no stranger to hard times...
...The rich create these hard times, and they're doing okay...
...But that is still rare...
Vol. 52 • January 1988 • No. 1
