The snow, the trash and the Bing-Bong Men

It snowed again today in the high desert. Beautiful, crisp, white snow that reminds you of Christmas cards. Not the city kind that gets black and evil within a few hours of falling.

But today was also trash day. So I had to wheel the big green plastic container down to the edge of the road for the guys to collect. Which they did.

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My grandparents lived in Sherwood (as in Sherwood Forest) a suburb of Nottingham, England. I was born there and my parents lived with my grandparents until I was three.

I'm sure the memory I am about to describe is later than that as I actually have no recollection of living in that house, just many memories of visiting it.

My grandmother was a wonderful old lady. I don't ever remember thinking of her as young! She had a wonderful set of phrases she would use, most of which would mean absolutely nothing to you so I won't repeat them.

But one of her favorites had to do with the Bing-Bong Men.

Back then, all dustbins - as we called them in England - or trash cans were made of metal and when the guys came to empty them they would make a lot of noise as they were manhandled to the big old dustbin lorry (garbage truck) and emptied. They would bing and bong. Hence the Bing-Bong Men.

Innocent enough, right? But because nothing of their job was mechanized back then the Bing-Bong Men wore heavy leather aprons and caps and looked pretty scary - specially to a lad my age.

Knowing the image they presented, my grandmother had a favorite threat if little boys like me misbehaved. We would be given to the Bing-Bong Men.

I was terrified. "If you don't behave, young man, I'll give you to the Bing-Bong Men" she'd say, with a wag of her finger. And I believed. Oh lord, I believed.

Needless to say I was never given to these leather-clad demons, never whisked away to whatever world they inhabited when they were not emptying our dustbins. 

But to this day, as I drive back home and see the empty, green bin waiting to be hauled back to the garage,  I think to myself, "Good...the Bing-Bong Men have been."