Running on the dump

The other day I went for a run in Sunnyvale in the neighborhood just east of Moffett Field, where office buildings now flank the former Naval Air Station. My running path took me down Mathilda Avenue to the trails that run alongside the southernmost part of San Francisco Bay.

Most of the trails are flat, with one exception. There is a man-made mountain built from trash – an old landfill no longer actively used but firmly packed into a nice-sized hill. The active landfill is further east. Usually I run around the base of this mini-mountain, about a mile. But on this day for some reason I decided to follow a trail that went up the side of the hill.

It spiraled around as it rose and eventually I found myself on the top. Pretty good view from up there. To the west, you can see over the Moffett Field blimp hangars and on up the Peninsula, to the north is the Bay, and to the east you can see part of the grandstand at Levi’s Stadium, the drop tower at Great America and the mountains of the Diablo Range, including Mt. Hamilton.

I paused for a brief moment to look around. Then it struck me that I was standing on the accumulated trash of tens of thousands of Sunnyvale residents who had been coming to this dump for years. I couldn’t help but think about all the stuff that was buried there under my feet, and all the stories, too – a story for many of the discards accumulated during the years.

And part of that trash was once mine. We lived in Sunnyvale for 12 years, and made a number of trips to the dump to throw away things the garbage trucks wouldn’t pick up. I remember that distinctive “dump” smell – no longer present on the hill, but the same smell that I now get when I go to the transfer station in Redwood Shores. I also remember the seagulls wheeling around, and people backing up cars and trucks to heave stuff onto the piles that were pushed and shoved together by bulldozers.

I always feel good after going to the dump. There is definitely something liberating about finally parting company with a lot of things that were broken, obsolete or no longer needed. It’s a renewal, a fresh start of sorts.

And I felt good when I ran down off that man-made-mountain. The little nostalgia trip was fun. It was – well, maybe a virtual trip to the dump. And good exercise to boot.