Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin Article June 12, 2016

Silt piles, a sure sign of spring. 

by Merlin Lessler (The Old Coot)

A silt pile by the curb. It was a sign of spring! You’d see them all over town. Oh sure, robins started showing up long before the silt piles, they were the proverbial early birds, but I didn’t put my faith in them when I was a kid growing up on the south side of Binghamton. Not while enduring a biter cold April and seeing them sit around on snow-covered branches.

But, the silt piles! That confirmed it! Spring was really here.

I lived on Chadwick Road during the silt pile era. There was a storm sewer grate right in front of our house. Something I was well acquainted with since it gobbled up a half dozen of my baseballs, tennis balls and rubber balls every summer. I kept a look out for a city truck to pull up to the curb. When a worker hopped out of the bed of the truck with an iron bar and a long handled, spoon shovel I made my move, ran out the door, crossed the yard and stood by the curb as he pried off the grate with the iron bar started pulling up silt with his shovel.

He was there for the silt; I was there for the balls. The ones I’d tried to retrieve with a hoe or a long stick with a nail sticking out the end. My attempts failed most of the time; the sewer won. The city worker would grunt as he lifted out a shovel full of silt and placed it in a pile next to the curb. I watched for a ball, reaching over and grabbing it when he turned to dip his shovel back into the catch basin. Eventually he lifted out all the silt, left the pile behind and moved on to the next one. I followed. There were two of these ball-eating storm sewer grates on our street.

The neighborhood was eventually dotted with silt piles, awaiting the arrival of the pick up crew, who drove up in the same truck they used in the winter to spread ashes across the road after a snowstorm. The same guy who spooned out the silt in the spring, stood in the bed of the truck tossing long swashes of ash, mixed with sand and cinders across the road in the winter. This combination was the primary source of the silt that ended up in the storm sewer.

We always begged the ash crew to leave a strip along the curb so we could ski and ride sleds down the hill. Sometimes they did, but most often they ignored our pleas. One of the times they left us a strip, my mother skidded her car on it and smashed into a brand new demo in a neighbor’s driveway. I thought I was in for it; I had not only begged for and received a snow strip, I’d bragged to her about it. But, she didn’t blame me; she blamed my father. For buying a car with a “new fangled” automatic transmission (a 1954 ford hardtop). “You can’t control the darn things!” she complained. “It just goes where it wants!”

Anyhow, the silt piles are long gone, as are the city workers with long handled spoon shovels. A giant vacuum machine has taken over the task. All we have now are the robins. And again this year, their prediction of spring weather was premature. 

My sister patsy finishes up clearing the driveway on the 

ill-fated day my mother's car slid down the hill and into a neighbor's car.