Squirrel Island Historical Society: Truck Guys
Dick Schweppe: 1958
My good friend, Craig Magher, and I became "truck guys" when I was 16 years old in 1958. We started just driving the tractor. We cleaned seaweed off the beaches and dumped it in a pit near where the septic system now is. Some days we would remove many trailer loads. We also did lots of other jobs like painting and cutting grass. At that time, Ray Gagnon was the garbage man. He named himself the "Friendly Garbage Man". Before that, Jerry Newbury was the garbage man.

At that time, islander Buzzy Warren was working with Carl, he did this for several years. They were a great pair! They started a lobster business. They had a tank to keep live critters in the freight shed and sold to islanders. Buzzy had some great stories about "Carl Quotes." One day several planes loudly broke the sound barrier. Carl turned and said, "Buz, did you hear that? One, two, three of them right in concussion!" Carl used to refer to Wonder Bread (or other similar soft bread) as "wind pudding". Carl would often say, "The Hell with everyone except you and me, Buz... and then the Hell with you!"

I later became the garbage man and served in that capacity for several years, with Buz for one year and then on my own. You may know that back then, we used to fill up the truck and then back it out over the rocks, near the dump, and dump everything directly into the water (just as all the septic pipes went directly overboard as well).

We did have a singing group called the Islanders Four. It consisted of Buz, Craig Magher (who was by then working at Logan's in the harbor), Chris Wadsworth (the tennis pro) and myself. We played almost every night at the tennis shack and also performed in the first Show that I produced and directed with Polly Bartholomew. Polly's dad George put in so much time playing piano for all practices as well as the show itself. We used well-known songs but wrote new lyrics to some of them. We all sang folk songs made famous by the Weavers and some other crazy stuff for laughs. Chris played a great banjo and I played guitar.

In that, the first of our shows, I also made note of some of the most unique garbage sites. Every garbage day, Mr. and Mrs. Blanchard Pratt would leave only one eggshell and one orange juice can. Mrs. McGraw's housekeeper would almost "gift wrap" her garbage and sprinkle something fragrant on it.

Years later, my wife Susie and I produced and directed another show to help celebrate Squirrel's 100 Birthday. One number in that show featured Susie playing and dancing as the "Queen of the Dump" with some of us garbage men singing "Dancing In the Dump" to the music of "Dancing In the Dark".