For Ken, my friend at the dump

Jonas Bonnetta | Jan 17, 2024

I always read the obituaries in the newspaper, as they're short stories of people’s lives. From the few lines you glean little pieces of a life, and with your imagination you put the rest of it together. Having lost my Dad in his early 50’s, I always pay attention to ages, where donations are going, and try to put some of the puzzle together. I think of the last days leading up to passing and the silence that falls over a house, like the quiet snow falling outside right now as I type this, and reflect on a loss.

Last night, sitting at the kitchen table, reading the Frontenac News, I saw the face of my friend Ken, the waste site attendant at the Olden dump. I texted my partner to tell her and then sat with it for the rest of the night, as I tried to make some sense of the loss. I wanted some outlet to express my grief and to extend some type of tribute to a person that I didn’t know all that well, but who had meant a lot to me. It’s had me thinking about peripheral people in my life, that I see here and there, who play a role in my life but who I don’t necessarily know all that well.

Ken was the lead man at the Olden dump. I can’t recall if he was there when I first moved up here, 10 years ago, but I do remember when I first started to chat more with him. I was working as a journalist with the Frontenac News at the time and so we’d always gab about the Township and the County, and waste site testing, and shipping our recycling south, and the fees, and the bureaucracy around all that. He’d always get a bit heated and cynical about it and he’d lean into that curmudgeon character, and we’d laugh about it. I think he played it up even more because he knew I got a kick out of it. He had a classic eye-roll that he’d release when you’d be in conversation with him and a truck would pull in with a trailer, loaded to overflowing, pleading ignorance to the rules of the waste site. He’d always come down from the heated hut to help me sort my messed up recycling or to unload the car which always felt like such a luxury service. I really looked forward to these little gabs about what was new, how his grandkid was, the big truck rims he’d bought his son for his birthday, whether I should buy a Toyota, how his golf game was going. I’d wave to every red jeep on Highway 7 only realizing too late that it lacked Ken’s personalized license plate and I was just randomly waving, keenly, at strangers. I just thought Ken was cool.

At some point I noticed Ken was missing at my dump drop-offs and just assumed he was out golfing or visiting family. Then I found out from a friend that he’d been diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing treatment. I got Ken’s number from my friend Bill, another dump acquaintance, so I could text him and check in. I was worried it was an overstep into someone’s personal life but he was happy to hear from me and we had a lovely exchange about how he was, how our families were, the beers we would eventually have together. He was positive. It was important to me to let him know that us regular dump people cared about him. It also lifted me up and made me feel less helpless.

Then 6 months went by where I didn’t go to the dump and started to fear the next time that I had to. We hadn’t texted in a long time. Late this past fall, I made a trip over to drop off some garbage and buy some bags and felt so buoyed by relief when I came up the hill, past the sand dome and the graders, and saw his red jeep parked by the hut. I pulled down into the lower area of the dump and shut my car off to go over and shake his hand, tell him I was really happy to see him, ask how he was and why the heck he was back working. He filled me in on all the details of the last year, including how taking estrogen supplements was giving him hot flashes, which got me laughing. I cannot confirm or deny the science behind his claim, but to picture “grumpy” Ken having a hot flash was hilarious and he knew it, delivering the story with comedic perfection. He told me his energy was low but that he was hoping it was going to improve. He seemed his usual self, complaining about dump stuff, glowing about his role as grandfather. I caught an eye-roll or two as the cars kept pulling in. It was great to catch up and before I left I made sure to tell him, again, how truly happy I was to see him there, even though it felt sentimental or melancholy to tell my “dump guy” that I had missed him. We did our usual long-distance wave across the site as he busied himself with the next truck, and I spun up the hill and out of there with joy knowing that some part of normalcy was restored in the universe that day.

I can only offer my version of a Ken story, but he was important to me and I want people to know that. He was always so nice to my partner and our son, patient with our barking dog, patient with my mixed-up recycling, my arriving 5 minutes before the gate closes... A beautiful balance of compassion and curmudgeon. His absence at the Olden dump will always remind me how everything is changing and that it’s important to tell people you care about them while you can. People enter into our lives in sometimes seemingly insignificant ways but leave a profound emptiness when they leave.

My condolences to his family and friends.

- Jonas Bonnetta