My dad is only more than 1.6 meters tall,
The tattered blocked his view.
While he was pushing the cart,
While moving his body to look ahead of the road,
Cycle
The horn in the car pocket kept shouting:
Collect the rags, collect the wine bottles...
1
"What does your dad do?" many people have asked me.
"My dad, my dad, my dad is a farmer, an old man. "My eyes kept rolling in my sockets.
Many identities have crossed in my mind, and I have thought that my father is a teacher and a doctor. But the lie will be exposed one day, and I won't do such a risky thing.
So I showed them my father's identity as a farmer, although my father had two identities, and the farmer was only one of them. Our family has been poor for many generations, and farming has naturally become a necessary condition for survival.
My dad is indeed an old farmer, but what is more in line with my dad's identity is the one who collects rags, because most of the time, he walks the streets and alleys to collect rags. My dad pushed the scrap cart and kept shouting: "Collect the rags, collect the rags, whoever has the rags you don't want to sell them quickly." ”
Although my dad supports the family by collecting rags, the identity of collecting rags is something that I have always been difficult to talk about to others.
When I was in elementary school, I met him on the way from school, and I would never shout "Dad", and I had to try my best to distance myself from my dad in public.
"It's a shame to have a dad who collects rags, and all he gets back is other people's garbage. That's all I could think about at the time, so I naturally didn't call my dad "Daddy".
My dad was wearing fat pants and pushing a scrap cart, his long trousers were pulled up, and he walked a few steps and fell off, and he trampled on the soles of his feet. The trolleys were already filled with scraps from every house. The rags were tied tightly to the car with a rope by my dad and loaded high.
My dad is only more than 1.6 meters tall, and the tatters block his vision. He pushed the cart and moved his body to look ahead of the road, repeating the cycle, and the horn in the pocket kept shouting: "Put away the rags, put away the wine bottles......
I knew he couldn't see the way ahead, but I never showed him the way because I was afraid that he would suddenly call my name when he saw me.
When I had the chance, I ran away as fast as I could, for fear that others would associate me with the man in front of me.
2
My home is located in a small village in the southwest plain of Shandong Province, where collecting rags is a profession that others look down upon. Only when the family has reached the point where life can not be continued, will they do the business of collecting rags. Collecting rags is synonymous with poverty, which is the same as doing business is synonymous with wealth.
A small village on the southwest plain of Shandong Province
My family was very poor, and my father didn't marry a daughter-in-law until he was in his 40s. So there was a big age gap between me and my dad, who was just 50 years old when I was born.
The brick and mud house left behind by my grandfather became the residence of our family. My birth was also forced to take place at home, and I was born in 1997 with an experienced midwife pinching my mouth and the clear cry of a baby girl. My dad used two bags of sugar as a reward for the midwife, and the midwife walked out of my house with a pouting mouth.
My birth gave my family a breath of life, and my dad began to think about how to make life better for the family.
He worked as a popsicle seller, a kiln worker, and a craftsman. The craftsman is at best to say, in fact, he is holding scissors to cut a large iron sheet around, and then holding a hammer to smash the rivets at the junction of the iron sheet, and within a day's work, a washbasin was made by my father. In fact, in addition to the iron basin, the spoon used to hold the soup, the dustpan, and even the kettle, he also made it. My first kettle was made for me by my dad, but it didn't look very beautiful and I had already discarded it.
With the development of the times, machines have gradually replaced manual work, and no one is willing to go to a special master to make iron basins and spoons, because the machines produced are often cheaper and more beautiful. My dad was completely unemployed.
In the 90s of the 20th century, waste collection was still a very prosperous industry, and small traders and hawkers engaged in waste collection began to spring up. My dad joined the army of rags. Broken copper, wine bottles, plastic bottles, paper shells, broken televisions, etc., he wanted everything he could.
Since I was in elementary school, in my memory, my dad was busy every day, I couldn't see him in the morning, and I couldn't see my dad come home for dinner until noon. After eating, he left with a cart full of scrap.
Some of the things that were recovered were still usable. For example, a rusty kitchen knife, a fan that won't turn, and a clock that can't move the needle, as soon as they are in my dad's hands, they will immediately play their original role. The kitchen knife can be used after polishing, the fan can be re-run by connecting the wiring inside, and the clock is a little bumpy, but as long as the battery is replaced, it can re-emit the ticking sound. As long as the broken things are in my dad's hands, they can be turned into treasures.
My dad often said to me, "Nowadays, people can't live if they have money, and it's a pity that they don't need such a good thing." "So I have kitchen knives, fans, clocks in my house······ Most of them were collected by my father.
But I was disgusted by my dad's behavior. When I was in junior high school, when I came home from school and saw all kinds of clocks hanging on the wall, I didn't know where the fire in my belly came from.
"I asked you to ask for it, let you ask for it, what are you doing with so many watches?, can't we afford it?" I felt that his behavior was incompatible with my excellent grades in school.
"It's all good, and I can check the time when I go to bed at night." You're such a loser, do you think it's easy for your dad to make money?" my dad was so angry that he spat in my face.
The more my dad didn't listen to me, the more I had to deal with him. I threw the clocks he had just packed up on the ground and smashed them to pieces.
"In the future, I am not allowed to ask for so many useless things, I will smash them once. ”
My dad was very angry at my behavior, saying that sooner or later he would have to be angry with me, but my heart was full of pride.
Since then, my dad has never dared to blatantly get all kinds of things that people don't want at home.
As much as I resent my dad's behavior, I would often look for fancy books and all sorts of weird gadgets from my dad's pile of rags. I poured them all out of the bag and threw them on the ground, then sat down on top of the book and began to search for treasure. Comic books, bottle caps, yo-yos, yo-yos, and hairpins that others don't want are treasures to me.
But this was all done while my dad was away, and I didn't want him to get any of my grip, or he'd have an excuse to move all the into the house.
3
In fact, my dad didn't always collect the rags, and during the busy farming season, he would leave the work of collecting the rags and start working with my mother in the fields.
Cornfield at home
In autumn, the leaves of the corn stalks turn yellow, suggesting that the corn in my field is ripe. My dad took an axe and hung a towel around his neck, my mom broke the corn in the front, and my dad chopped the corn stalks in the back, and from time to time he took a towel to wipe the sweat beads on his forehead, and after wiping it, he quickly picked up the axe and chopped it, and grabbed the corn stalks with the other hand and threw them on the ground, one after another.
In the countryside, freshly ripe corn stalks are edible, and my dad called it "country sugarcane". But you have to be able to pick and choose from the corn stalks. I used to follow my dad's ass and pester him to find me "sweet cane".
"You have to look for those that grow thinner, and you have to look for those that have more sugar, and you have to look for the corn kernels that are small, because the nutrients are not sucked away by the corn kernels. "My dad looked at the size of the corn bale with his eyes, and then pinched it with his hand to see if the particles were even, and if there were not a few grains in it, then my dad would conclude that it must be sweet.
"This one is sweet. So my dad took the axe and cut it off quickly, cutting off both ends, leaving only the sweetest part in the middle. I sat on the corn stalks that my dad had bundled and sucked the sweet juices of the corn stalks, but I had eaten too much and my mouth was pulled several times.
To be honest, I prefer my dad in the farmland, because in the farmland, everyone is one identity, and no one says that my dad is a rag harvester.
My dad collected the rags for a lifetime, but what I didn't expect was that it was this dad who made me look down on and embarrassed me, and sent me to college with his hands that collected the rags.
4
My dad was the most supportive of my schooling in the family, and despite the indiscriminate bombardment of my dad in front of him, my dad's concept never changed.
In the third year of junior high school, the school requires the top 20 students in their grade to study in the evening until half past nine in the evening. At that time, my grades were not bad, and I was in the top 10 of my grade every time, so I also needed to study on my own every night. Most of the students who study on their own in the evening are from other villages, and the school arranges accommodation for them. In my village, I had to walk home alone at night after self-study every night.
When I got home, I just told my dad about my evening self-study, and I didn't say anything else.
Unexpectedly, when I walked out of the school gate after the evening self-study, I saw a dark figure holding a flashlight in front of the school gate and kept looking inside.
At the school gate at night
I quickly recognized my dad, "Dad, why are you here? I'll just walk home by myself, and I don't need you to pick me up." ”
My dad took my schoolbag with a flashlight in one hand and the other and said, "It's so late, I'm worried that you're in danger as a girl, and besides, I have nothing to do at home, so I want to pick you up." ”
Since then, whenever I get out of the evening self-study, I will see my dad waiting for me at the school gate on time, rain or shine.
In 2013, I was admitted to the best high school in the county, and I had to pay more than 2,000 yuan in tuition and accommodation fees as soon as the school started.
The family couldn't take out so much money at once, and it just so happened that the market of garlic was very bad that year, and a few cents a pound of garlic became a bargain. My dad wanted to wait for the price to rise before selling the garlic, but my tuition fee of more than 2,000 yuan couldn't wait.
My dad came to the family to discuss. I didn't expect them to plan the future for me in their hearts.
"None of the people with better conditions than our family went to college, and we didn't have the conditions to go to school, so we should marry early to reduce the burden on our families. ”
"The daughter of Lao Wang in our village didn't wait for junior high school to graduate, so she followed her mother to work everywhere in the factory, and now she is married again, and I heard that she has won hundreds of thousands of bride prices. ”
They think that a girl should find someone to marry peacefully, and the cost of going to school is a bottomless pit.
My dad didn't have the heart to talk to them about my school anymore. Before leaving, he said: "I will also let her go to school if I smash the pot and sell iron." ”
In the end, my dad sold the garlic for eight cents a pound and paid my tuition. As a result, just a few days after my dad sold it, the price of garlic rose to nearly two yuan.
"At least we'll sell it for half the money. My dad muttered.
5
Since I started high school, the cost of the family has been getting bigger and bigger. The tuition fee for each semester plus the monthly living expenses made life for our family strained.
In order to save money, my dad opened a small vegetable garden in the yard and planted vegetables such as peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, and beans. This will save you a lot of money on groceries. Only when I go home every month will I weigh a pound of pork.
Vegetable garden in the yard
Whenever my dad was in the market, the pork vendor would shout to my dad: "Lao Liu, Lao Liu, is your daughter back, do you call it pork?"
As long as my dad happily says to buy it, most of them will guess that I am coming back from vacation.
The pork vendors gradually became acquainted with my dad, and they often chatted with him. They knew that my dad was a rag, and they also knew that the old man in his 60s was still supporting a school-going daughter.
They gave my dad a chance to get the pork for free.
At that time, pork vendors killed pigs in their homes, and they needed a lot of firewood to boil water to remove the pigs' hair. Firewood was too expensive, so they used rotten shoes as firewood for pots. They asked my dad to pick up shoes for them and give them to my dad at the price of a dime a pound.
Since then, my dad has traded the shoes he picked up for pork. I didn't know it at first, but my dad was hiding it from me, perhaps because he was afraid that he would throw away the shoes he had picked up.
But then I learned that I didn't lash out and accuse him like I used to. How can I have a face, everything about me is given to me by my father.
On the eve of the 2016 college entrance examination, I was more and more afraid that my dad would not let me go to college because of money.
I couldn't help but call my dad and ask, "Dad, what if I get admitted to college and our family doesn't have the money for me to go to college?"
"If you get in, you have to get in, there will always be a way. You don't have to put your heart on that, you have to put your heart on learning. "My dad's words seemed to reassure me.
In the year of the college entrance examination in 2016, I did not get an ideal score and entered an ordinary second university in the province. Obviously, the number one problem in our family is the cost of tuition. And this time the cost is more, and the tuition fee of more than 5,000 yuan weighs heavily on my dad.
This time, my dad didn't consult with the family and didn't open his mouth to borrow money from them. My dad also understands them, and besides, every family has their own difficulties, and it is natural that they don't help.
My dad spent the whole summer trying to raise money for me. In order to make up for my tuition, he collected the rags day and night. He knew he couldn't stop, because if he stopped, he wouldn't be able to save for his daughter's tuition.
6
My dad suffered from arthritis in his legs due to his perennial collection of rags and his age.
My dad knew about arthritis, but I never took it to heart, and I didn't know he was going to hurt so much.
That day, my dad had just come home from collecting the rags, and when he got out of the car, his legs hurt so much that he fell to his knees. My dad shouted to my mom in the house, "Pull me up, pull me up." ”
My mom and I immediately ran out of the house when we heard the shouting, and saw my dad lying on the ground in front of us, unable to move, his shattered black hands supporting the ground. He tried to get up from the ground, but collapsed again due to weakness in his arm. I couldn't hold back the tears in my eyes anymore, but I still tried to sniff and keep the tears in my eyes.
My mom and I had a lot of trouble pulling my dad up from the ground. At that moment, my heart was most flustered, as if two villains were fighting in my ear.
The villain said: "Don't go to college, your father has become like this for you, how can you bear it." ”
Another villain said: "It's been hard to get to this point, it's a pity to give up." All your dad did was to get you to college. ”
Before I could think about it, my dad asked me to go to the small clinic in the village to buy painkillers. I know painkillers work the fastest, but they're only temporary.
Over the years, my dad has eaten the most painkillers, although the painkillers are cheap, they hurt the stomach the most, so my dad started to take a few dollars a bottle of stomach medicine.
"You can make a lot of money by collecting rags, go to the bank for a loan. "Someone gave my dad an idea and persuaded him to give me a bank loan. My dad felt that this was the only way to pay for my tuition.
A few days later, my dad went to the bank to ask if he would give a loan, and the bank said that he needed a guarantor. But who wants to vouch for us. The loan had to be abandoned.
Although my family didn't support me in school, they helped our family in the end. Maybe this is the so-called human kindness, and I am grateful to them from the bottom of my heart.
In the end, my dad scraped together and with the help of a few relatives, he was able to make up the tuition fees. In this way, I was able to enter the university without any problems.
During college, my family was still tight, and my father, who is 70 years old, still endured the pain in his legs and went door to door to collect rags. But fortunately, I can apply for a national scholarship every year, and then earn some living expenses on my part-time job, so my dad at least doesn't have to beg others for my tuition fee to be lower.
But the big net of life has tightly wrapped up my dad, so that he can't have half a moment of rest. When I got into college, my dad still had to shout in the streets: "Put away the rags, collect the wine bottles." ”
When I came home from the summer vacation of 2018, my dad said to me, "I don't collect the rags as quickly as I used to, I can't climb the stairs of other people, and I have to ask them to throw the rags down the stairs." People are getting older, and they are becoming less and less useful. With that, my dad put his hands behind his back and sat down on the small bench and began to count the bottles that had just been placed on the floor. "One pair, two pairs, three pairs...... "My dad always had to calculate the rags before he took them to the recycling station, because he was afraid that others would lie to him and give him less money.
There was an old man in the village who liked to drink, and every few days he would knock on my door and call my dad to his house to collect the bottles he had drunk.
No one wants to recycle his bottles, because he always likes to play scoundrels and ask you for more money every time to buy wine next time. Moreover, the price of this old man's wine bottles will not exceed 5 yuan, and other people who collect tatters naturally refuse to patronize his house.
Puzzled, I asked my dad, "Why are you willing to go because people don't want to go?" ”
"No matter how much he sells, I'll still make some money from it. ”
My dad was like a budget-conscious little daughter-in-law, and she had to earn a little money, and I thought to myself, "This old man is shrewd." ”
But at the same time, I found that my dad was growing old in the days I couldn't see, and I was more and more afraid that it would be too late.
7
There was an old man in the village who was the same age as my father, who died a few years ago. A few days before he died, he joked with my dad: "Between the two of us, you will definitely not live as long as me." ”
"Who will live long, it's not certain. My dad said casually, but I didn't expect that the old man really died of a sudden illness a few days later. My dad often mentioned this in front of me, and people my father's age in the village died one by one, and my dad began to be afraid.
"My neck is about to be buried in the ground, I'm afraid I'll ...... one day" My dad didn't say the word "death".
"Nonsense, you can live to be 100 years old, and you haven't enjoyed my blessings yet. ”
I looked up at him, and he was a staggering old man, and he had shrunk a lot. The hair and beard are gray and gray, and only by opening your eyes and carefully identifying them can you find a few half-black and half-white hairs. The ears are getting back, and if you call him, he has to turn on the speakerphone to hear. The calluses on his hands were so yellow and hard that he couldn't cut them with scissors. There are still a few teeth in his mouth, and he can't bite hard things anymore.
In the summer, after dinner, my dad would tremble and carry an old recliner from the waste collection to sit in the shade of the tree in front of the house, he held a banana fan that had been sewn again and again by my mother with a needle and thread and fanned rhythmically, the sound of the fan and the rustle of the leaves in the wind were mixed together, my dad squinted his eyes and seemed to be asleep. hummed softly in his mouth: "The east is red, the sun is rising, there is a Mao Zedong in China, he is the great savior of the people......"
I noticed that my dad was more and more fond of sleeping and snoring louder. I also drool when I sleep. He also became more and more fond of telling me about his former youth.
"I lived in an era that was exactly five or eight years old, and everyone's head was so hungry that they hung on their shoulders, and they ate the roots and bark of trees, and that was a common thing······"
I talked about these things over and over again, but before he was halfway through I began to impatiently say to my dad, "Alright, alright, Dad, you've told me all these things several times." My dad was silent, like a fish that had been suddenly thrown ashore, and he opened his mouth and breathed in his half-closed gills.
I often wonder what I would be doing now if it wasn't for my dad's insistence three years ago, working, getting married, having children...... I heard that the daughter of the old Wang family in the mouth of relatives has been divorced twice, and she got married again this year, and it is said that the man still has a building in the village.
Once by chance, I heard the song "If the Dried Wine Sells Nothing": "If the Dried Wine Sells Nothing, what a familiar voice, how many years of wind and rain with me, never need to remember, never forget, there is no heaven where there is land, there is no land where there is a home, there is no home where there is you, there is no you without me······"
I saw an old man shouting on the street, "Collect the rags, collect the bottles······" I wanted to sing the song "If the wine is dry" with my dad.
When I typed these words at night, I knew that tomorrow morning, as soon as the sky was slightly bright, and the street lights on both sides of the village road had not yet been extinguished, an old man in his 70s would appear on the street, limping and pushing the tattered cart and shouting: "Collect the rags, collect the wine bottles······
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