The Hazleton Junk Drive

On Holy Saturday this year I happened to look out my kitchen window and notice that my neighbors had a massive junk pile outside their garage. I immediately was brought back to my youth seeing the junk pile over my fence. So I decided to look a little closer at the junk pile when I had noticed what looked like a vacuum cleaner handle sticking up in the mountain of junk. I thought I could salvage the old vacuum cleaner. Luckily moments later I saw the junk haulers pull up their truck to haul away the junk. I went outside and asked the one man what kind of vacuum cleaner that was and he said it was a Hoover. Well he asked me If I wanted it and I said yes. After handing it to me I noticed that the Hoover was a vintage vacuum cleaner from the late 40s to early 50s. It was a Hoover Model 115 Junior. I groped the bag and noticed that the bag was full of dust. After about 2 hours of removing the dust from the shakeout bag with pliers and vacuuming it out with other vacuums I managed to get it cleaned up.
  The vacuum actually still worked when I plugged it in. However my mother disapproved of me bringing this antique vacuum into our home and my brother had taken it away and put it in the garbage. I guess they didn't want bugs and mites and germs. I tried to explain to them that it probably belonged to that little old lady who used to live next door to us and that the vacuum was probably bought at my grandfather's appliance store. They didn't buy my pleas to keep the machine. I hated to see it get thrown away after I spent time and aggravation to clean the thing out. I originally had plans to sell it to a vacuum collector.
  That whole ordeal has lead me to the main topic of my post today, The Hazleton Junk Drive.
  I'm going to be nostalgia tripping today to a part of my youth growing up in Hazleton, PA. Up until the year which I believe was 2002, the city held an annual junk drive once a year where you can throw literally anything away no questions asked. This was usually held in the springtime hence the term spring cleaning. However this was more like Christmas in July if you ask me.
  I still have vivid memories of seeing people walking up and down the city blocks rummaging through people's junk piles. People actually threw away some pretty good stuff from what I remember. The junk pickers would have their old beat up pickup trucks, full size station wagons with the back window smashed out of it filled with junk. I remember some of the junk pickers vividly double parking their vehicles and walking the blocks picking up people's junk. These junk pickers would give the American Pickers a run for their money since they were getting this junk for free and not lowballing hoarders for junk.
 Although as being around 12 years old when the Hazleton Junk Drive came to an end, I really never had a chance to explore people's junk piles that much. I believe the last year that Hazleton had the Junk Drive, my two nephews and I spotted an old leather salon chair a few blocks down the street from my old house and we decided to bring it home. So my 2 nephews and I walked down the street with a skateboard so we could put the chair on it and haul it home. We proceeded to put the chair on the skateboard and all three of us pushed the chair up the street so we could put it our backyard and make a robot out of the old chair.
  However just like the old Hoover Vaccum that I found in the trash, my Nephew's other grandmother came to pick them up at our old house and just so happened to be sitting on the front porch of my house talking to my mother. My nephew's grandmother had saw the 3 of us pushing this old salon chair on a skateboard and told us to put it back in a very annoyed tone. We ended up not taking the salon chair all the way back to where we got it from but to the back of my old house. Our old hose had a huge backyard which had a space in the back where the fence had ended. We kept it there for a few days and we really never got to build that robot that we had planned to make.
  However about 2 years later the City of Hazleton decided that the junk drive was unnecessary and obsolete when they made the rule that you can throw this stuff out every week for garbage not one time a year. Garbage day hasn't been the same ever since they changed the rule for allowing you to throw anything away every week. I want the junk drive back.

Hazleton Tugboat

  Well ever since I bought the Texaco Nautical Series Fire Chief Tugboat 2 years ago I gained an interest in Tugboats built by Jakobson Shipyard. While doing research on them I found out that there was a tugboat owned by the Lehigh Valley Railroad called the Hazleton. I live in Hazleton and never even knew there was a tugboat named after where I live. So I began to look for pictures of the tugboat and came up unsuccessful until tonight when I decided to give it another try and it was successful.

  So I found a picture on a Lehigh Valley Railroad website.

Why Hazleton Needs Animal Control

  The City of Hazleton Pennsylvania is in dire need of Animal Control. While Hazleton does have an animal shelter, Hazleton has a problem with stray cats and dogs living under people's porches and or sleeping and pissing on their front porch at night. The animal shelter does try to do a good job and can't take all of the strays in due to not enough room or lack of supplies/ volunteers and people who want to adopt a pet.  However Hazleton needs an animal control force extremely bad. Why? Well for starters people sometimes own a dog(s) without having a front gate in their yard so if the dog breaks off the chain, the dog can escape and cause harm to somebody. I can relate to this. When I was 9 years old I was coming home from Sunday dinner at my brother's house. I just got out of the car when the neighbor's dog from down the street broke off the chain and bit me. This caused a me to have cynophobia or the fear of dogs. I have since overcame that fear. The neighbor did not have a front gate in their yard so the dog couldn't escape. This all could have been prevented if they had a gate. The animal control department could enforce laws requiring dog owners to have a proper enclosure ex giving the homeowner a fine.
  Another thing an animal control force could do is fine dog owners whose dogs escape on a daily basis. If Hazleton had an animal control force, the students who walk home from the schools would be protected from dogs that might escape causing harm. Here is a made up example. Let's say a student is walking home from school and a dog nuzzles it's way out so the gate open's because it is not latched properly. The student has a fear of dogs and tries to dodge the dog. While doing so he tries to stop a car in the street for help and gets hit and gets paralyzed and is now wheelchair bound. If an animal control force were established this may have been prevented. If the dog got out of the yard frequently, the animal control department could implement a three strikes rule system on dog owners. Strike one is a verbal warning. Strike two is a fine. Strike three is placing the dog in animal control custody or having the enclosure locked with padlocks so the dog cannot escape.
  Hazleton needs an animal control department. If the City of Hazleton cannot do anything about it, maybe Luzerne County can create a county animal control department. With the new Home Rule government, this can be possible. Animal control would relieve homeowners of unwanted pests around their homes and make the streets safe for walkers. Animal control would also relieve the burden the police sometimes have with animal pests, such as taking out a rabid dog or arresting a cat hoarder.