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Were it not for the blood, I never would have discovered the kite. The blood was minor – just a small bit from my nose, and a little in my mouth. I imagine it was about the same amount you would expect from getting hit in the face by an errant, low-flying crow or a soccer ball kicked as hard as possible from several feet away. If the latter were kicked by your father-in-law, suddenly and without warning, with such force that you actually felt your nose smashing against your teeth, then that would be the exact right amount of blood.

Luckily, it is spring in Colorado, so with the blistering cold and seventy mile an hour wind gusts, I could barely feel my face. Still, it bleed, so my father-in-law, feeling a little guilty about trying to kill me, offered a napkin from his glove compartment, so long as I walked him to his car a few hundred yards away.

We probably should have checked the weather before we decided to walk to the park. My only explanation for our lack of preparation is that we are so ready for warm weather that we all pretended that it had come, even though the clouds and winds gave us indications otherwise. We’d been quite happily kicking the soccer ball around for a half hour or so before my father-in-law came by. As is often the case when he gets involved, the sport turned from gently passing the ball around to seeing who could kick the ball the hardest toward another person. He won.

On my trip back from his car, I noticed a brightly colored wind-sock caught up on one of the park’s many trash receptacles. It was haphazardly twisting and twirling in the wind and I realized, upon seeing the string, that it was a discarded kite. It only took me a few minutes to untangle the kite from the trash can and when I came over the hill dragging the rainbow of joy behind me in the air, the kids were delighted.

They played with the kite for an hour or so while the wife and I huddled together in the grass trying to stay warm. The kite was designed to have two or three strings attached to it to give it some lift. By the time I’d untangled it from the trash, it had only one string attached, and I could not figure out how to attach the other two, so the girls just flew it with one string. As a result, it never got more than twenty feet off of the ground, but that was high enough. Eventually the cold overtook us, and we headed home, kite in tow.

This evening, with almost no provocation, my wife began describing to me a movement, or group of people, known as “freegans.” These folks are dedicated to living a simpler life – preferring to find the things they need in the trash, rather than in stores. To quote Wikipedia:

“Freeganism is an anti-consumerism lifestyle whereby people employ alternative living strategies based on ‘limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources.’ The lifestyle involves salvaging discarded, unspoiled food from supermarket dumpsters that have passed their sell by date, but are still edible and nutritious. They salvage the food not because they are poor or homeless, but as a political statement.

“Many freegans get free food by pulling it out of the trash, a practice commonly nicknamed dumpster diving in North America and skipping or bin diving in the UK. Freegans find food in the garbage of restaurants, grocery stores, and other food related industries, and this allows them to avoid spending money on products that they claim exploit the world’s resources, contribute to urban sprawl, treat workers unfairly, or disregard animal rights. By foraging, they are preventing edible food from adding to landfills and can feed people and animals who might otherwise go hungry.”

When I was waiting tables in college, I witnessed a couple of servers snacking off the plates of customers as they carried them toward the dishwasher. “Sir, if you are done with that lasagna, I’d be happy to take it away for you.” In fairness, I think I tasted a cannoli once, but I took a bite from the end that had not been touched, and I’d never tried a cannoli before, so it was more for the experience than for hunger. But, once something went into the trash, it was pretty much off limits. Apparently, though, that’s where it all begins for these guys. I guess with the right mindset, maybe I could…

This marked my first exposure to freeganism, but after thinking about it for several minutes, I think I just might be attracted to it. I know unfettering a kite from the neighborhood park trash is a long way from snacking on a half-eaten ham sandwich from behind the deli, but still, it makes a guy think.

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