Garden Valley Daily News: Garden Valley Mall for Best Buys!

My one reserve, as I drive to the Garden Valley Dump, is that the fellows working there won’t cooperate with me. They can be a surly lot, when they choose.

My misgivings are realized when Mr. X replies, “I won’t say anything and I don’t want my picture taken.”

Bill decends from his trash-moving aerie
to see what the heck this person wants.

So many garden possibilities.

Whining more than a little, I grouch myself around to the back to the huge Metal Department, where Bill answers briefly, “It’s all garbage, so write it the way you want it,” his back already moving away from me.

So I decide to do just that, already making up bratty dialogue with a nose-picking, butt-scratching yahoo I name "Clyde".

A planter or rustic table base?

Planking, firewood, so much lumber.

Meanwhile, I take photos and remember all the good “buys” I’ve picked up at the Metal department: chicken-wire, fencing, chairs, drip hoses, posts, vintage bed-frames for vines, wire racks, antique sled—the list runs on.

The Lumber, Firewood, Landscaping and
Bath/Kitchen Interior departments
are all in the back, near Metal.

After I visit Home Furnishings and the Paint departments in front, the must stop is Kitchen and Gardening, behind the dumpsters. By this time, Mr. X has deemed me a serious and perseverant reporter and deigns to give me dialogue—no names though.

Landscaping or Art?

“This is the Mall,” he churls through his sandwich, a bite of which he doesn’t offer when I pointedly say yum, what is it? “The paint, the furniture, this is all the Mall and for everyone. We ask that aluminum cans be kept separate—we store them back here.”

Railroad ties for so many uses.

The Mall is beginning to hop, so I jump to grab a shot of Linda Bass. I have already appropriated my new Pastry Board and though I lust after a nice bowl, I realize now that this is a bowl Linda will appreciate, which I tell her. I hear her say to Mr. X, “Naw, I’m just looking—you gotta do this.” She grins at me, and says, “Wow, it’s a vintage McCoy serving bowl,” and walks away with it, waving her other find--a magnified make-up mirror.

Arty patrons add their talents to the carpet tapestry.

Tiles, buckets of paint, glues, turpentine,
mattresses--a homeowner's shopping nirvana.

Mr. X says they save everything in this department for a couple of weeks: “If no one picks it up, we toss it.”

Crouch Volunteer Ambulance EMT, Donnie Adams, confides, “My husband, Gene, used to love coming to the Mall. He called it “Wally World”. It was kind of like the highlight of his week!”

The wood stove that keeps the
guys going all winter.

Know how much vintage ladders like these
cost in Beverly Hills?

12:30 shopping and dropping madness.

I am told by Mr. X that I just missed all of the action. “Between 12:15 and 12:30 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, Miller Contracting, out of Horseshoe Bend, picks up with his big compacting truck. He’s got accounts all over the county. When he comes, it’s a madhouse—cars everywhere.”

Perfect Bob, get it in the truck!

As more trucks arrive, my new friend X says, “This is a self-service transfer station. People are required to take care of their own garbage but I like to help out.”

He shouts to a man whose bag spills and gets up to grab some trash, remarking, “I charge them when they miss and make a mess.”