I want to publicly thank Jim Holmes from the Harvard DPW and Brother Joachim of St. Benedict Abbey for their assistance at the Harvard Transfer Station on Saturday, Feb. 2.
As I was tossing my trash into the upper compactor, a gust of wind blew my broad-brimmed hat with its Native American beadwork around the crown, off of my head and into the compactor. This was my favorite hat, procured in the Black Hills of South Dakota about five years ago. However, it was just a thing and I was resigning myself to its loss when Brother Joachim and Jim both decided it was a good-looking hat and worth some effort to retrieve it.
Brother Joachim remembered that there was a hook at the end of a long pole at the compactor control house, used to retrieve trash barrels that had been inadvertently tossed into the compactor. After Jim informed us that the hook had disappeared a while back, Brother Joachim suggested that if there was a rope available, he would be able to let himself down into the compactor to retrieve the hat. While he went to look for a rope, Jim and I headed over to the scrap metal pile to see if there was something that could be used to fashion some sort of a hook. However, the metal pile had been cleared out the previous week so there was nothing suitable. When we got back to the control house, Brother Joachim had not found a rope. Then, looking around the base of the control house, we spotted a piece of bent metal tubing. Jim found a wire coat hanger. Brother Joachim had some electrical tape in the Abbey van, and he and Jim taped the coat hanger, now fashioned into a makeshift hook, to the metal tube. Brother Joachim, with great skill and dexterity, maneuvered the makeshift hook into the inside of the hat’s crown and gently lifted it out to a point where I could grab it.
All in all, it was another great example of impromptu Harvard teamwork that earned the deep admiration and appreciation of this Harvard citizen. All’s well that ends well.
Jim DeZutter
Eldridge Road
