Over the fence

So, we have some slippage going on behind the house. What used to be a gently sloping hill is now, in places, a crack, and in places, a cliff. There's not much that can be done about it that is financially feasible. The few options—planting trees and prairie grasses—we have done. Now it's just a roll of the dice to see how much longer we can maintain our view.

It's not the worst problem in the world. We're not Ebola victims or political refugees. There are so many families that would be happy to have a house, even one so precariously perched. Still, I must admit that it's kept me up nights. It's been the longest spring that I can recall, waiting for our little seedlings to take root, wondering whether the next rainfall will bring the cliff closer to our back door.

As I lie in bed thinking about it, I fantasize about the various objects we might push "over the fence" to bolster the cliff face. I say "over the fence" because there used to be a fence there, and so many of our rotten foods and other biodegradable waste have over the years been assigned that fate. Old Christmas wreaths, poinsettias, floral bouquets, mushy avocados, pineapple stems—"Over the fence!" It's felt like "Off with their heads!"

So how to fill in the hill? The first thing that comes to mind are old cars. They're big. It wouldn't take all that many. People already have that stereotype about Appalachia. We could pick up some old polluting junkers, drain the fluids, put them in neutral and ... over the fence. Of course, we'd have to make sure the first few landed just right. Call them the anchor vehicles. You wouldn't want each car to just go rolling down willy-nilly; they might end up on the neighbor's patio. A few well-placed station wagons, maybe a Pontiac mini-van or an old Caddy or two (It's been done before!)—they would establish a foundation, and then upon them we could roll any number of Corvairs, Yugos, Pacers, Escorts, Challengers... It could be a kind of lemon grove. We could advertise and create an online application process. Hummers and other obnoxious gas guzzlers, of course, would get preferential treatment. Take those babies out of circulation. Carbon sequestration!

Out of date textbooks left behind in our children's bedrooms might also do the trick. Intro's to economics, sociology, philosophy, accounting ... they were way over-priced and written to be outdated, so that each year's student body would need to fork over their parents' dough for the latest edition. I could add to them a number of dated encyclopedias, dictionaries and style manuals, and not an insignificant number of project reports—master plans, design schematics, conceptual studies. I always imagine that I might dig them out to find some gem of an idea for some future project, but that project has been long since eclipsed by the dust mites breeding on those faded pages. Ashes to ashes.

Part of me can't help feeling bad about throwing away books, however, even for this most practical of purposes. In a college town like Athens, the tactic might catch on a little too readily. Like padlocks on the bridge, before long I'd have carloads of students dropping by to deposit their used textbooks. The mound would soon block out my morning sunrise with the spines of Principles of Geology or Understanding the Dynamics of Political Discourse in the Age of Social Media and Fake News.

What about used, outdated technology? We're still holding warped vinyl, brittle cassettes, tangled VHS tapes and various no-longer-operational devices used to play them. They're all collecting mold on the pingpong table in my basement. Is that stuff biodegradable? How many chargers and phone cords do we have in that box on the shelf? Do we still use anything that they can support? Oh, and we still have a few miscellaneous parts for blenders, food processors, and coffee-makers, not to mention one or two computers. Most of the latter came with instruction manuals, too. That's at least another scoop or two.

Speaking of instruction manuals, there are any number crinkled, food-stained game boxes cluttering up my office closet. We never officially read the instructions, but they were sometimes referred to during heated late-night arguments, usually when someone new (not a relative) came to play. If we got rid of the board games, I would have more closet space and I wouldn't get dragged into those games anymore. Over the fence!

Onto the metaphoric land fillers—the petty grievances, the disappointments, the heavy self-loathing baggage, the unrealistic or just unrealized hopes and dreams, the overly optimistic to-do lists, the new diets (and associated workout accessories), the New Year's resolutions (and associated empty liquor bottles), the Lenten sacrifices (and associated guilt), the Christmas wish lists (and assorted twinkle lights that no longer twinkle), the self-help books and videos. Or maybe just start with all the despicable political blather, the annoying headlines that daily accompany my morning coffee. How many times are they going to lead with something awful Twumpy the President did or said? God! How many years of my life do he and the Bush/Cheney clan owe me? They've been dragging me and a good many of my fellow homo sapiens down for years. Surely all that negativity must have some weight that could support a crumbling clay hillside. All that methane gas emitted by those belching windbags. Over the fence!