The March 28 Saturday morning temperature was in the thirty’s, but at least the sun was coming up. The three of us, David Moore, Vic Farrow, and myself were in good spirits as we pulled stuff out of my garage onto a flat-bed trailer. The activity was helping us get warm. Vic and David  had already loaded the borrowed trailer Friday night with seven doors, a TV Set, fence pickets, scrap wood, and a twin mattress from another Gatlinburg resident. Out of my garage we loaded even more scrap wood, metal pipe, several half-empty gallons of latex paint, a door, a wood palette, and an armful of curtain rods. I was so glad to be getting rid of this stuff!

The occasion was Pflugerville’s twice-yearly City-wide Cleanup Day when citizens are  invited to bring their junk, especially large items like tires, broken furniture, and metal or recyclables like electronics, batteries, and paint to a central location across from Brookhollow Elementary on Railroad Avenue.

Our idea to go around Gatlinburg with a trailer and collect junk popped up in the February 15 “Gatlinburg Get Together” conversation. Someone remembered that the wait at last year’s cleanup was so long they went home. All they wanted to do was dispose of a couple gallons of paint. Why couldn’t we load up just one trailer with Gatlinburg’s junk? This way we hoped more Gatlinburg residents would participate if they didn’t have to get up early and wait in line themselves. David Moore volunteered to borrow a trailer from his friend.

To advertise our project, Barbara Cabellero and I made signs and put them up March 18th at our neighborhood gateways at Gatlinburg, Dove Haven, and Pigeon Forge.  The signs read, “Free Help, March 28, Cleanup Day, Call 989-0332, GNAfriends.org” We hoped residents would call and leave a message or complete a registration form on the web site. Unfortunately, no one did! The several people who signed up heard about it from GNA’s Yahoogroups mailing list, which has 36 subscribers. Next year we’ll have to try harder to get more participation.

On the other hand, our trailer was pretty full after David and I picked up more paint as well as some giant shrub root balls before getting in line on Railroad Avenue. The system was simple. All of the scrap wood, mattress, and brush was gobbled up by the IESI dump trucks. Next, at different stations, we off loaded the metal, then the paint, and finally we the TV went into an electronics bin before we drove out the exit. We had plenty of volunteers and IESI staff helping with the unloading.

In return for our volunteer efforts, GNA received $45 in donations from residents who requested junk picked up. A special thank you to David Moore for obtaining the trailer and Barbara and Vic for helping me out with this project.