Malden sits on the meandering boundary between the flat, arid Columbia Basin and the forested breaks of the Rocky Mountain foothills. It’s circled by steep grassy hillsides with intermittent stands of scrub pine and rocky outcrops, and the vegetation, though often sparse, provides grazing for hardy white-faced cattle. Farmers also grow grain in these hills, and resident ground squirrels are a special bane to some, who encourage hunters to use them as targets. The farmers have been known to provide the shells.
The oval foundation of the old railroad roundhouse, all that is left of the original justification for the town’s existence, is still discernible at the east end of the switchyard.
The depot still stands as of this writing, a lonely icon, as if deluded that its silent persistence will be rewarded when “Old 263” comes whistling through town again, proudly leading a mile of box cars. The telegraph will clatter again and the smell of diesel will waft through the grooved floor boards of the lobby.
All of which ignores the fact that laborers long ago wrenched the old rails and ties from the ground, forever sealing the station’s lonely fate.
The demise of the railroad was the occasion for the exodus of many families from town, leaving in their wake closed businesses and “For Sale” signs posted on lawns. Felton’s drugstore closed, taking away its comic book section; the old movie theater sat with boarded doors until young people discovered other ways to get into the building and stage their own cops-and-robbers shows. “Lest someone gets hurt,” town fathers had the building destroyed, and were much maligned by youth who were sure the real intent was to eliminate anything that would provide entertainment.
The grocery store bounced from building to vacant building in a futile attempt to find a roof that didn’t leak; in the rainy season, customers learned to check their purchases to make sure that nothing but the bean sprouts were actually sprouting.
Thoughtful people would occasionally start a Cub Scout or Boy Scout troop, and it would struggle for a while. There were no organized team sports. However, the town always seemed to produce top athletes who stood out on the teams of neighboring schools.
To me, the most attractive feature of growing up in Malden was the large open-pit garbage dump outside the west city limits. It was a beckoning cavern, strewn with treasures and reeking of entertainment.
We fellows would salvage glass bottles from the debris. Size and shape didn’t matter, nor previous contents. Having amassed a sufficient number of bottles for our arsenal, we would line up along the edge, and take turns tossing the bigger bottles up in the air. The rest of the firing line would throw beer bottles at that airborne target, often shattering it and strewing its remaining contents over a wide area — which included boys.
We would also line up big bottles on the old cars rusting out in the bowels of the dump. Discarded tires served as bowling balls, which were sent speeding down the sides of the pit, smashing the bottles amid a lot of cheering.
We would also pursue rats through the refuge, bombarding them with empty beer bottles, while crows, disrupted from their own foraging, scolded from ringside seats on the limbs of surrounding trees. They seemed to root for the rodents.
It was a rare trip to the dump that didn’t lead to armloads of stuff being taken home, to the chagrin of our parents. There was great disparity between what we considered salvageable and what our parents accepted. At that time, bottles were only worth a penny apiece, and hardly worth gathering.
After years in the military, I came home and headed for the dump, the scene of so much childhood enjoyment, with great anticipation. I arrived at the site with my .22 rifle in hand and a pocketful of shells — only to find that the county had taken advantage of my absence to close the dump and level the whole area.
I ask: Is it any wonder that juvenile delinquency is high, when today’s youth can’t have a garbage dump to play in?
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