The Elusive Sage of the Gilmanton Dump
Trash compaction maestro Pete Kotsakis on the intricate, little-known wonders of life at the transfer station
I write this post with my hat in my hand–and with ardent hopes that I can right an error that marred an earlier issue of this newsletter. On October 7, when I lamented the current state of the newly restructured Gilmanton dump, I took aim at the man running the trash compactor. I compared him to an “angry god,” focusing on how he is remote from most dump visitors, sequestered in a shack high above the compactor, shouting at all who fail to abide by local trash disposal rules. I said, “I don’t even know his name.”
That post was a case study in bad journalism. First of all, does any good ever come from bitching about change? Negatory. Second of all, the trash compactor guy’s name is not exactly a state secret. I wouldn’t have had to expend more than three or four calories to learn it. But my biggest mistake came in failing to learn the true nature of the man I maligned, for even though he is at times curmudgeonly, he is one of our town’s kindest and most civic-minded citizens. He is also a very interesting guy with a wide variety of interests and passions. Please, dear readers, allow me to introduce you to Pete Kotsakis.
Pete has been operating the compactor at the dump for a decade now, and last Wednesday I ascended the short staircase to his shack. We sat in the structure’s single eight-by-twelve room. A space heater kept the place toasty, the smell of nicotine hung thick in the air, and I felt as though I’d entered a special kingdom. There was a stately Persian rug on the floor. There were 11 clocks ticking away on the walls. There were boxes and boxes of book beside a Sanyo TV. There was a scintillating poster of Marilyn Monroe beside the operator’s button for an auxiliary trash compactor, and there were several half-decent oil paintings as well. Virtually every single item in there had been rescued from the landfill by Pete.
Pete is a retired ramp chief for Delta and Northwest Airlines; he oversaw cargo loading, among other things. He spoke to me in a thick Boston accent, with a Marlboro trailing smoke from his fist. I have edited this transcript very sparsely. This time, my aim was to preserve Pete’s singular voice.
Where are you from?
Melrose, Mass. My parents bought a two-bedroom by Sawyer Lake [in Gilmanton] in 1990. It was a second home for them. They bought it unfinished. Inside, it was just plywood walls and by two-by-fours. My parents have passed on. So, yeah, I made the place liveable. I did the ceilings, the floors, the heating, the vinyl siding, the landscaping, the kitchen cabinets, that type of thing. A project.
When did you move up here full-time?
2010.
Do you like it here in Gilmanton?
I don’t have a problem with it. My brother lives on the lake. There's four or five people from Massachusetts that we know that bought up here. Gilmanton’s small, though. People have gripes. When I started working at the dump ten years ago, the residents were all miserable and angry and pissed off. They were like, “We pay taxes. Why do we have to pay to get rid of scrap metal?”
I was stuck in the window here, so I decided I put pumpkins on each side of the compactor, and the old people–when they saw that, they smiled. They liked it. Then I put out some big flower pots. I watered the flowers. Sometimes I put a vegetable garden in the little grassy island out there and gave the tomatoes and cucumbers to residents.
When people come in here, they look around and it’s nice. And that changes their mood. They say, ‘Oh, Pete’s a nice guy. He puts the Christmas tree up. He puts the lights on it.’ When the residents are happy, they don’t complain as much.
The residents are alright. I'm always out the window talking to them. They all know me when they come in, and it’s always, you know, “Hi, Pete, how you doin’? The weather’s changing. Summer’s coming. When are you gonna get the tomato plants in?” When they complain, I try to talk to them. I try to mediate with them so they don't go beat up on the selectmen.
Okay, so tell me about all these clocks here.
People bring them in, and they don’t work, and I just fix them up and give them away.
What’s wrong with them, typically?
People leave the battery in too long, and it locks up the clock. Sometimes I replace this stuff in here.
[Now, Pete picks up a clock and points to a small compartment above the battery slot.]
What do you call that compartment there?
That’s the guts of the clock. Sometimes I go in there and replace parts. One day I was just sitting here, doing nothing, fixing a clock, and I just gave it a rap with my fist and it came back online.
People see these clocks through the window. They’ll say, “I like that one.” And I just say, “You want it?” People take them for their apartments, for their garages, their game rooms. I don’t care. I’m always ready to toss ‘em anyway.
What’s inside that wooden box by your chair?
Oh, that's a 16 millimeter movie camera. I'm waiting for a nice snow day so I can get it running. I think it’ll work, and there’s a lot of movies in the box too–Spanky and The Gang, a lot of stuff from the 1930s and 1940s. During the summer months, I’ll invite the neighbors over to my back yard and we’ll have a couple beers and we’ll hang up a sheet for a movie screen. We’ll watch these movies and see if they’re any good.
So what's the greatest thing you ever found here at the dump?
An oil lamp from 1900. Half of it was missing, but I brought it over to that lamp store in Meredith. The lady there put a shade and a chimney on it, and I’ve got it in my home. And I use it because the power goes out a lot here. When we get a big snowstorm, the trees go down on the power lines, and my elderly neighbors, they’re stuck–no heat, no water, no nothing. So I look out for them. I’ll go over to their house and say, “You got a wood stove? You got enough milk? You have orange juice? A loaf of bread? You got food for supper?” I’ll bring some spaghetti sauce over for them, whatever they need.
That’s great. So tell me about the oil paintings.
This room is my little home. When I first walked into it ten years ago, it was kind of boring–just four empty walls. So I painted the walls. I painted the ceiling. I hung up paintings. I went back and forth to the goodie room [an integral but currently shuttered part of the Gilmanton dump where one man’s trash became another man’s treasure]. I got books to read.
What are you reading right now?
A book by Louis L’Amour, but I’m reading this one too.
[Now, Pete picks up Hitler, a 1973 biography, written by Joachim C. Feist and hailed by Time magazine as “the best single volume available on the tortuous life and savage reign of Adolf Hitler.”]
Is the Hitler book any good?
It’s alright. I just pick up whatever’s around.
Ok, so do you ever use the TV here?
When there’s a snowstorm, it’s dead here and we watch movies. Action movies. Sylvester Stallone, Jason Bourne, a lot of spaghetti westerns. Somebody left a bunch of John Wayne movies in the goodie room and we watch those.
You’ve got some binoculars close by your chair. What are those for?
Well, sometimes when people pile stuff outside the goodie room, I’m stuck up here. But now I can look. And if there’s anything good, I can run out the door and get it.
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